


chlorine

by lances



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Continent Arc, Eventual Romance, Hanahaki Disease, Introspection, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Slow Burn, a realistic take on what this situation might look like for them, set on the black whale, takes a while to get there though, they're not in love to start with but it gets really sweet later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2020-06-23 23:05:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 80,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lances/pseuds/lances
Summary: “I won't bury my people’s gods in an unmarked grave,” the words wintered Kurapika’s mouth, “or dub their tongue your language. So hear me when I say this, Lucifer: I willneverforgive what you’ve done.”Kuroro’s lungs seared, white-hot and celestial."Heard and heeded."(or: kuroro's got a flower in his chest, a blooming tattoo on his skin, and an ache for a lover more tragic than he is.)





	1. act i. fateline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“you may blame aphrodite / [for] soft as she is / she has almost killed me with love for that boy”_ sappho, _untitled_. 
> 
> i can only describe this as a wannabe heavy metal hanahaki fic with palmistry-titled chapters so please enjoy this trainwreck
> 
> i'm so sorry
> 
> find this clown [@itsillumi](https://itsillumi.tumblr.com/)

A dot at the pit of his sternum.

It started there, with that burned _henna_ -like freckle. Kuroro didn’t make it habit to look into mirrors, his reflection neither a priority nor a thing of interest. It came with being born where he’d been born; finding a swallow of water in Meteor City was more valuable than the length of adolescent stubble or the grease in his hair. For the longest time, Kuroro’d had no perception of how he came off—in appearance and attitude.

The few times he’d caught sight of himself, it was in the broken glass of looted stores and the round face of bootleg liquor. The reflection had always been too distorted to make out, and back then, Kuroro didn’t care enough to chase it. He’d lived at the cruel edge of reality, where being pretty put a bullet in your head. There was no room for vanity at the end of the fucking world.

And that was what Meteor City was: an impounded apocalypse. Even its preachers, the filth who stood on corner-streets flashing the yellow of their teeth as proudly as they did their illiteracy, had spoken of little else.

Those were the same people who’d called mirrors _portals of vanity_ and _sanded sin._

But when they’d dug mercury nails into his forearm and yelled, spit flying, Kuroro’d used the mercury in his eyes to stone them.

_And now—_

Standing in front of a mirror, he thumbed the base of his chest.

Now was different. Knowing what he looked like had nothing to do with how perceptive Kuroro considered himself, _that wasn’t there before._ That dot, a teardrop stain placed with unnatural symmetry, hadn’t been there the last time he’d looked. Kuroro frowned; he didn’t like scrutinizing his own body, never really did it. Still, when Shizuku’d cocked her head and pointed center his chest earlier that evening— _“Ah, what’s that?”—_ he’d finally looked down.

_How strange._

Kuroro traded thumb for finger, tracing the tattoo’s outline in circles. His vest was left open and cast darker, the gauze on his upper arm and head going from white to blue-grey in the dim space. The bathroom was derelict, its porcelain coated over in grime, mirror spotted with rust and hair-fine cracks. White light burned the stall in harsh angles, and even though he’d seen worse, Kuroro knew the Whale’s fifth tier was a trashy place to study something so small.

 _Whatever._ That didn't keep him from making out its density: too flat to be a beauty spot, too unaged to be a birthmark, too unclouded for a bruise. There was no watercolor spill across his chest, nothing colorful. Just the perfect round of a perfect problem. 

Instinct wanted him to carve it clean out.

Grab a blade, shave it off.

Kuroro stared at himself, eyes round and head tilted. Marks always meant something, though, and this one was no different—he just had to find out what. _Is it some type of nen, then?_

Maybe one of those copycat mafiosos thought they could fuck with him, reckoned they had a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving if they tried. Kuroro’s lip hitched, a quick movement born of annoyance. No, they were too tame. They wouldn’t know how to operate _nen_ under his radar, much less on him, without Kuroro feeling it. There were few who could.

_Hisoka._

That clown wasn’t above petty little tricks— _the cunt is still alive, isn’t he?_ —and Kuroro wouldn’t put it past him to be crafty enough for something like this. The only issue was, it didn’t _feel_ like Hisoka’s _nen_ ; it didn’t feel like anything. A power signature was absent, there was nothing extravagant or particularly threatening about it, either. Hisoka’s lascivious trademark was nowhere to be found, and the spot did nothing more than sit on Kuroro’s chest like the byproduct of a tattoo gun and a drunken mistake.

He’d sooner credit it as some weird, deviant spying tactic by an unimaginative Zoldyck. Kuroro scoffed, _even Illumi can’t be that much of a letdown_ , _right?_ He wasn’t credible or trustworthy, but he couldn’t be that boring. Hisoka wouldn’t keep the man tied to his fucking hamstring if the two didn’t share a knack for the bizarre. Kuroro had banked his guts on that detail when he agreed to let him join. _Freaks attract freaks,_ no matter how much any of them wanted to deny it.

Kuroro let his arm fall and his neck straighten. He wasn’t getting anywhere; as long as the spot proved benign, he wouldn’t deal with it. There were bigger things in his orbit—princes with expensive fates, necks to halve, men to slaughter.

 _Salome, hear this,_ Kuroro zipped up his vest without breaking eye contact with his reflection, _and bring me the hung head of a renegade._

_//_

Days bled into weeks and the Whale remained as it was: riddled in filth and piss. Kuroro’s annoyance was growing by the hour, a chiming reminder that he was nowhere near completing either of his objectives. Contact between the Gene’i Ryodan was kept scarce and interval, with updates coming back either neutral or negative. That was, until cellular service was swallowed by the mass of open ocean. Kuroro couldn’t help the hot hell of frustration that took over him. He had to trust that the rest of the Spiders hadn’t been wiped out.

Trust was all he had at this point.

His faith in the troupe’s abilities had never strained as hard or spread itself so thin in the past; Hisoka's behavior made certain it did now. He was a corpse on the run, someone who’d bastardized death and gotten away with it. As aggravating as that was, it still wasn’t the issue. What tried Kuroro more than the lock-and-key to fucking immortality, was Hisoka’s _nen._

The implication that his powers had amplified in dying—that his _nen_ had matured past its original form—was more infuriating than intimidating. That suggestion was only made worse by one, lingering detail: Kuroro had no clue which Spiders were left, save Shizuku, Bonolenov, and the fucking _Zoldycks._

Kuroro clicked his tongue, heel beating against the crate he sat on.

The irony of that last one was scathing.

_I’m going to crucify that clown._

“Ah, _danchou_.”

Kuroro's eyes shot up without a blink, chin tucked into his collar. Shizuku looked as she always did, a little lost and plenty clueless, glasses marking blue into her nose, too heavy on the fragile crest of bone. “Yes?”

“You haven’t spoken in almost two hours.”

“That’s not unusual.” Kuroro intoned, his foot still bouncing, iron-heel beating into wood. Their voices were hidden under the hiss of unrestrained talk. Too many men swayed around them, choke-holding bottles and slurring their way to stupor. The hall was a cesspool of it—hazy and humid, the lighting hanging in odd corners. Kuroro wasn’t a stranger to bad people getting wasted, but just because he was used to it, didn’t mean he liked it. It also didn’t mean he couldn’t take advantage of it.

Intoxication was self-poison he could get behind.

 _Yes,_ his tongue pushed against his teeth, _pay no attention to anything but that piss-smelling booze._

“Sure,” she agreed, lofty. “But you’re not reading this time around.”

“I’m not feeling particularly focused,” Kuroro stopped his leg. “Or talkative. You’ll have to forgive me.”

“I forgive you.”

Kuroro fought a smile despite the weight of circumstance. There was something so absurd about her, a purity written to absolute shit. Shizuku was one of the few Spiders who didn’t kill for gain or for pleasure. She didn’t take much out of what they did but the sense of community Kuroro instilled from day one. He admired her for it. Although she wasn’t one of the initial members during the Gene’i Ryodan’s founding, Shizuku carried their spirit best. _You’re more Spider than I am, at times._

Selfish and selfless, reliable and rebellious.

“Thank you,” Kuroro meant it, settling on a gentle smile as sweetener. “You’re kind.”

“Oh,” Shizuku blinked before walking the handful of steps between them to sit beside him. The scent of smoke and drink clung to her, dissolving into the inner lining of leather. “You think so?”

Kuroro didn’t hesitate. “Without a doubt.”

She was silent for a beat too long.

“What doubt?”

Kuroro allowed himself a vocal exhale.

_And there it is._

Classic, untreatable forgetfulness. Kuroro ignored it, looking from Shizuku’s profile to the spread mass of the dining hall. The ambiance was dark, lit in shades of burned apricot that made the mood weigh heavier. He’d already torn the tier apart—once, twice, thrice—with Bonolenov and Shizuku at his heels. There were no signs of Hisoka, no rumors or sightings. Still, something refused to add up in his mind.

_Cha-R._

Since his confrontation with them, Kuroro couldn’t bring himself to look elsewhere. They’d been too arrogant, too flippant about everything. The display was a telltale sign he’d made an enemy—that tattooed rose, the flex of their leader’s shoulders, the cluster of hubris, the ease of offense. _Why would I offend you,_ Kuroro’s eyes narrowed at nothing, _if you didn’t have a secret worth hiding?_

A secret thathad to do with Hisoka or the Kakin.

In that order.

His jaw pulsed, _we stay a little longer._

“You’re thinking too much,” Shizuku started again, forgetting that he'd turned her down for conversation a minute ago. “You get this kinda brooding look when you do. It’s not very nice.”

“Do I?” Kuroro responded without enthusiasm, eyeing the way men stacked themselves against the bar across the room. The press of his coat was a burden in the heat, sweat pooling in his clavicle and the back of his neck. Air became scarce with every new person entering the hall, ready to drink away their boredom. Kuroro wanted to scoff; none of them knew they were sailing straight to hell. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“You wouldn’t,” Shizuku rested her palms against the crate’s edge, legs starting to swing. “Your poker face is pretty standard when you’re daydreaming—” _daydreaming?_ “—or reading, but never when you’re thinking. That’s always darker, somehow.”

“You think I’d benefit from being more positive?” Kuroro's eyes slid to their corners, watching her.

“I do.” It sounded easy to say. Easier than it should’ve been. “Good men should have good thoughts, right?”

Kuroro stared back. “Yes, they should.”

_But I’m not a good man._

Shizuku, satisfied with the answer, turned down to focus on her cellphone. Kuroro took that as his cue to look away. It was easy falling back into his thoughts after a statement like that. Blaming fate for his behavior felt like a copout. Fate was myth not matter, just like pantheons and prophets and every other intangibility people shackled themselves with in an effort to absolve blame. Except nothing divine decided which men were good and which weren’t.

Men did. 

Kuroro wasn’t special. He _chose_ to orbit sin, it got him where he wanted to be and it got him there quick, empathy be damned. Even if fate or fortune or gods did exist, they didn't deserve worship; they deserved pity. Playing dollhouse was a lifeless eternity. 

Sighing, he craned his neck upwards, eyes sliding closed. Bonolenov still wasn’t back from reconnaissance, the hall clear of recognizable _nen_ save Shizuku’s. It was free of _nen,_ period. Kuroro wasn’t surprised—there were few people who knew about it, even fewer who used it. _Makes my job a lot easier._ Hisoka couldn’t pronounce _zetsu,_ much less choose to use the damn thing. Finding him in a place without white noise shouldn’t prove hard. Still, it made settling his own guard impossible until they faced off.

_I need to get off this crowded death-trap of a sh—_

Kuroro’s eyes flashed.

Fire licked into his throat, siphoning between his lungs like a swallow of sulfur. Flattening a palm against his chest, Kuroro’s head fell. It took him an exhale and a heartbeat to feel it: _nen._ Familiar and grief-stricken, heaving with the memory of kerosene and Pakunoda’s trembling fingers. Kuroro knew that signature just like he knew the steep dip of that alabaster profile.

_Kurta._

Kuroro didn’t blink, couldn’t breathe. The sear in his chest settled into a dull ache at the sight; he’d recognize that face sooner than he’d recognize his own reflection. Kuroro never forgot a hurricane waiting to hit, never forgot the promise of disaster once he'd looked it in the eye. While he was a patron of mistake—casual, moderate, _biblical_ —this wasn’t one.

The Kurta was unmistakable _._

He looked nothing like he had when they’d met, every bit of _boy_ in him speared on the edge of whetted collarbones, brows low and cynical. Lights drove shadows into his suit, deepening the lines of his body and the violet-insomnia that hung under his eyes. In two years, the innocence and grace of Kurta had fallen from his form. There was no melody to his movements, no fluidity in the harsh press of torn lips.

Kuroro’s spine iced.

Mercy didn’t belong in the seams of his suit the way it had in that woolen mantle. Kuroro wasn’t sure what to make of the sight, his mind running a mile a minute, trying to find reason where it never was. Nails scraped raw against the crate, his self-control the only thing keeping his _nen_ from flaring. The last thing he needed was to make a spectacle.

His aura was already viscid and violent when passive.

Release was no option.

Kuroro’s jaw throbbed with how hard he clenched it. _Gods,_ this was the worst possible scenario. The Whale was loss after loss, and if there was one person that shouldn’t have been on-board, it was the chain-user. The other didn’t seem to notice the attention, walking alongside a strange man decked out in ox-print and face paint. _A Zodiac._ If the aim was to find the Spiders, they would’ve done it by now. Kuroro hadn’t bothered hiding his _nen_ since boarding and he hadn’t ordered the others to, either. Unidentifiable was one thing, sealed was another. 

But the Kurta wasn’t looking for jackshit—that half-mast apathy was proof enough.

Shizuku shifted, starting to feel the pressure of Kuroro’s tiding _nen_. “ _Danchou_?”

Without responding, he leaned forward with narrowed eyes and heartburn, fingers at his lips. The pair navigated the crowd unrecognized, Ox going on about something Kuroro was too far to hear. _You look like shit, Kurta._ Those eyes were flat with fatigue, body broader and stiffer than it had been in Yorkshin. Hostility was written into the perpetual curl of his lips and there was no kindness in his shoulders; even then, the anger was absent. The poise, the grace, the _drive_ —

Gone.

He looked like the boy-king of a seized city: jaded and disillusioned.

He looked _wrong._

“Shizuku.” Kuroro was as cutting as he was monotonous. “I want you to look to your far left and tell me what you see.”

She turned with practiced subtlety.“A crowd?”

“Further in.”

It took her a beat. “Ah.”

Kuroro prompted, expression wry at every angle. “Now, who do you see?”

“A person,” she mused, “who doesn’t belong.”

Fighting the urge to follow behind them, Kuroro's smile strained. A person who didn't belong, indeed—in a suit and a tie and no trace of Lukso in his walk.

//

The heartburn stayed for days after.

Kuroro ignored it, tried to focus on the task at hand. He couldn’t help the way his mind lingered to Yorkshin when it was given enough free time. Everything on the Black Whale brought him back to the gasoline-damp alleyways, to the expensive cologne and the automatic rifles. Kuroro didn’t understand it—he’d never preoccupied himself with thinking of the past. It wasn’t useful.

What happened in the past tended to stay in the past, there was no _nen_ power that could change that.

He let the shower water whip his skin, head tilted towards the spray, eyes closed. Even the subway tile reminded him of Yorkshin—long silver hair and sunglasses, archaic eyes worth carving out for millions. The Kurta’s face was embedded in his thoughts and Kuroro didn’t know how to remove it. Wasn’t sure he wanted to.

_What an odd feeling._

No one had ever looked at him the way that man had, with so much rage and loathing. No one that lived long after they did, that was. There was always caution, maybe reverence, some fear. At the time, the Kurta hadn’t been much of a man, just a boy who’d never faced a threat half as daunting as Kuroro. Even then, he’d squared his shoulders and fueled his own fire and challenged the Gene’i Ryodan at its peak, en masse. Although he’d never voiced it, Kuroro would’ve fought him to submission if it meant he’d have the Kurta as a member.

 _Not that he gave me much of a chance,_ Kuroro’s mouth slanted in a parody of a smile, the water curving into his lips. That confidence, that resolve—it was art. As angry as he wanted to be at the deaths of Uvo and Pakunoda, there was something awe-inducing about the man. Every Spider knew the price of membership came with the chance of dying. They all accepted that, even him.

 _Forgive m_ e—Kuroro wasn’t sure who he was apologizing to, but the thick taste of oil under his tongue served to cut the thought in half. When swallowing didn’t work, throat coated and uncomfortable, Kuroro opened his eyes, rolled his tongue and spat straight onto the porcelain.

Not quite red enough to be blood, not quite clear enough to be saliva.

The water washed away a sap-like amber, the purr of heartburn branching across his chest. Kuroro’s body steeled, and he watched the tiles return to white.

//

Kuroro was angry. 

Looking in the mirror made him angrier. Standing in an underlit, single-bulbed bathroom, he traced the curve of two lines—faded copper, wound parallel—blooming from the spot on his chest. They wove outward, no longer than the space between finger knuckles, but just long enough to have Kuroro’s rage pile like a promise waiting to blow.

Water dripped off the edges of his hair, a slow staccato, and his lip vaulted upward.

Fist met mirror.

//

_It has to be him._ This had to be Illumi Zoldyck’s doing. There was no one else on the ship with the skill and the vendetta. All Kuroro knew aura-wise about the man was that he was a manipulator, and although this felt more like a conjurer’s doing, Kuroro couldn’t discount the possibility that this was being used to control him. After all, he’d barely been able to maintain a focused thought since the dot appeared.

And now it was growing _._

Kuroro strode across the deck, deliberate steps taking him past well-dressed men, women and the occasional child who looked far too out of place. It would’ve been easier to blend in had his killing intent not brushed up against every person in the room. When two men fell apart to make way for him, Kuroro didn’t thank them. He didn’t spare their worried looks a second thought, either.

It was hard to care with a mouth full of bloodlust.

Feeling this much rage was foreign. Kuroro didn't chase death, and he didn't find any particular satisfaction in it; death was as good an end as any. But while Kuroro didn't shy away from dishing out violence, there was very little about confrontation that appealed to him. In most cases, it was messy and painful and it took too long. He couldn’t understand the pleasure Hisoka derived from it—

 _—and yet here we are._ Kuroro’s pulse was stable, eyes flicking from corner to corner with eerie precision. He wanted nothing more than Hisoka’s beating heart between his teeth and Illumi’s throat in his palm. Kuroro knew he'd played a risky hand, accepting the latter into the Spiders knowing well his loyalties lay elsewhere. _But you’re going to fix this, Zoldyck,_ he breathed, aware of people tripping on their feet around him, steps stuttering under the pressure of his anger. _And you’re going to lead me straight to that fucking carny._

At the hum of restrained _nen,_ Kuroro’s body spun on its axis.

 _There you are_.

Illumi was propped up outside, against the railing of the deck’s terrace, a wine glass in hand. The sheer calmness of it had Kuroro’s blood simmering. With long, unchallenged strides he made his way toward the sliding doors. This deck may have been cleaner than the fifth, but Kuroro still felt the residual burn of smoke and sulfur lining his chest.

“You’re late,” Illumi spoke the moment Kuroro’s iron-toe hit the terrace wood. “I sent Kalluto away over ten minutes ago.”

Kuroro’s rage was ice on his features, keeping them stiff and unthawed. “Am I?”

“Very.” Illumi didn’t turn to look at him, touching his mouth to the wine-glass, wetting his lips with alcohol. He looked fresh, like he always did, clad in a wraparound skirt and loose shirt. Always so put together, always so _fucking_ classy. Kuroro wanted to destroy every semblance of ease and privilege, maybe break bones in the process. Illumi was the manifestation of every single mistake in Kuroro’s repertoire, from Silva to Hisoka. Every wrong turn Kuroro’s life took was complemented by the keen edge of a needle. “I’m not impressed.”

“You were expecting me, then.” Ignoring the last bit, Kuroro pulled his voice into a deeper monotone. The ocean breeze knocked his wet fringe back, blood cleaving his knuckles to drip onto the deck. After leaving the bathroom, he hadn’t had the mind space to take his time. No, Kuroro had taken to the Whale’s halls without hiding his cross or the spider pinned against his bicep. He was in no mood to be waiting in lines. “Any reason for that?”

“Well, you’re not subtle,” Illumi’s tone was as candid and grating and jovial as it always was, “Waving your _nen_ around like that. It’s a little gross, actually, too heavy and sticky.”

 _You’re one to talk._ Illumi’s aura, even dormant, felt like sickness.

“What can I say,” tired of staring at the line of Illumi’s hair, Kuroro walked forward, “I’m not a patient man and we need to talk.”

He came to stand beside Illumi, tracing the keen drops of a very Zoldyck profile. Silva was nowhere to be found in the oil-spill hair or the wide tilt of the eyes, but Kuroro would never mistake it: that face belonged to its name. The Zoldycks were branded, carried themselves with the mind-numbing apathy Kuroro trained himself into.

Illumi’s features were strange pit against the sunset—not beautiful, never that. Each epicene, elven angle was traded in for a contrived intensity; he was too symmetrical, carved straight out of a marble block with chisel and hammer. Kuroro hadn’t grown up knowing perfection, and looking at the man in front of him, he decided it was more eerie than awe-earning. Illumi was made by gods more driven to scare than seduce. _You’re so incredibly ugly._

Beauty needed kinder edges, livelier breaths. 

It needed humanity.

“I don’t believe that.” Illumi hummed, eyes more interested in the horizon than the threat beside him. “You’re plenty patient—so tell me, Lucifer, why’re you wearing your hostility on your cheek?”

 _Silva might’ve denied you his face,_ Kuroro’s expression was wide-eyed antipathy, _but his condescension didn’t skip generations._ Kuroro made the danger in his voice transparent. “People tend to get out of the way faster when I make it clear I’m not fond of delays.”

“Ah, should I have run?”

“I don’t know,” Kuroro cocked his head, leaning his side up against the rail, arms crossed. “You tell me.”

In a split-second, Illumi’s eyes found his own—flat-plateau to trench. “That sounds like an accusation.”

 _Ice_. “Observant.”

Illumi held his silence long enough to study Kuroro’s face, blinking and rolling the wine he cradled. “You’re offended.”

“I am.”

“Care to explain? I’m not a big fan of wasting time under contract.”

Kuroro’s jaw locked. “So, you haven’t done anything to warrant my anger?”

“Never said that,” Illumi dragged his high ponytail onto his shoulder, sounding pleasant. “I’ve probably done plenty over the years to fuck you over.”

 _Wonderful,_ Kuroro inhaled through his nose, patience running itself dry. “So be it. I have some questions, then, and you’re going to answer each for me.”

This time, Illumi did turn to him, head at an angle, birdlike and calculating. Without breaking eye contact, he took a long sip of wine that was more taste than swallow. “Rephrase that and I might consider.”

Kuroro huffed out a chuckle, voiceless and cynical as he looked out to the ocean and back again. Craning his neck low, he slid their faces closer. “If you’re cruising for a fight, I’ll teach you why _danchou_ ’s an earned title.”

He could almost _hear_ the clicking and bolting of gears behind Illumi’s eyes. It was more risk-negotiation than fear, with every bit of the Zoldyck’s pride forcibly pressed down to nothing. Kuroro might have taken a chance accepting Illumi into the Gene’i Ryodan, but everyone and their mother knew of Illumi’s deranged attachment to his family. It must have taken a broken backbone to consider joining in the first place.

Kalluto’s tongue was looser than his brother, after all, and Kuroro’d heard all the lovely things Silva had to say about him. _Being my inferior is killing you on the inside,_ Kuroro’s smile rose, complacent. _And I’m not kind enough not to take advantage of that._

“Very well.” Illumi’s gaze fell to a narrow slant, voice held in the same frustratingly high cadence. “What do you want?”

Kuroro bared his teeth without a shred of humor, _that’s a good boy._ Without a moment’s beat, Kuroro reached for his high collar, grabbing for the zipper and dragging the leather open in a single sweep. The wind blew the vest wide, leaving his chest—and the budding lines of an unwanted tattoo—laid bare for Illumi.

“Extrapolate.”

Illumi’s eyes left his with a flick, zeroing in on the faded seed. He was quiet, mouth a flatline heartbeat, dyed darker with wine and a dying sunset. The evening was falling in ripples, and sooner rather than later, the water would drown any remaining light. Kuroro couldn’t bring himself to care, too focused on the glacial landscape of Illumi’s features.

“Ah,” Illumi spoke after a pause long enough to be cruel. “I’m not sure what to tell you, that wasn't a question.”

Kuroro breathed through his nose, licking his lips. “Did you do this?”

“Draw on you?” Illumi’s patronizing hum was back. Kuroro couldn’t fathom how Kalluto revered him, cared for him, even. Illumi was borderline unbearable; _you and the clown were made for one another._ “I didn’t.”

“Funny.” Kuroro tossed him a smile of equal unpleasantness. “Now try me again, Zoldyck.” 

“I promise you,” Illumi slanted his shoulders, bringing his body nearer. He smelt like poison, acrid citrus that charred the air around them, burning Kuroro's throat on landing. “I have nothing to do with this—my powers weren't built to cater to aesthetics.”

He couldn't hear the lie where he expected it. Illumi’s words didn’t roll with dishonesty, and his amusement banked more on Kuroro's frustration than the actual issue. “And you don’t know who’s responsible for it?”

“No, not a clue,” he took the last swallow of wine, leaning down to place the glass by his ankle. Kuroro watched him rise with a flourish that bordered on theatrical. “Can’t say I’ve got any guesses, either. You’ll have to forgive me.”

“Sure.” Kuroro ran a tongue along his teeth, thinking. He didn’t trust Illumi as far as he could throw the man— _but I don’t think he’s lying._ “Have you come across something similar in the past?”

“Hard to say, people aren’t honest about their _nen,_ ” Illumi replied, “and my hits die before they have the chance to use it.”

Kuroro couldn’t help the heaving exhale that left him. He turned away, resting both his elbows on the guardrail, palms pressed together against his nose and mouth; the smell of blood on his skin was familiar. The sky fell into shades of violet, evening caving in on them, making his restlessness peak. Kuroro turned the information over in his mind; if it wasn’t Illumi’s doing, it had to be someone he’d come into contact with soon after they’d boarded. Not the mafia, not his Spiders, the Kurta hadn’t seen—

“—a question?”

Kuroro blinked, looking back over his shoulder at Illumi. “Excuse me?”

“You’re excused.” Illumi chirped. Kuroro didn’t roll his eyes. “I was asking whether or not you had another question for me.”

“I don’t.”

“Then you won't mind answering one or two of mine.”

Kuroro’s brows lowered, intense and aware of the sharpening slant of Illumi’s amusement. It was near-invisible, but what was there was left without veil, meant to be seen. “Go ahead.”

“Why does this bother you?”

“It’s unnatural.” Kuroro stayed perched, back arched. “It’s drawing itself. That’s not exactly reassuring, and I prefer having a handle on situations I’m put in.”

“It’s changing?” Illumi sounded more surprised than Kuroro knew he was. “How inconvenient.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“What else?”

Kuroro’s eyes narrowed, hands lowering from his lips to lock in a loose dangle over the edge. “What do you mean _what else._ Isn’t that enough?”

“Allow me to, ah, 'extrapolate'.” When Illumi braced his back along the railing, the smile was fully-formed and visible. “I'm guessing it surfaced with, or was at some point followed by, pain. Right?”

 _Yes,_ a suffocating _,_ chemical inferno; not that Kuroro was about to voice that. The only time he'd allow a Zoldyck to smell his blood in the water, was over Kuroro's dead body. “Does that matter?”

“Plenty.” Illumi cocked his head skyward, hair sleek over water, disappearing into a backdrop of black sky and blacker ocean. He was the perfect image of an arch, waist cut small, muscle stretched and taffy long. If he were to press back a little more, Kuroro imagined his whole body would dip into the ocean. Much like everything else about Illumi, that felt like an illusion; no Zoldyck's center of gravity was subject to mistake. “Let me say this much: I’m not the one who put it there.”

Kuroro stayed silent.

“In fact, I don’t think anyone did.” Illumi’s eyes slid to their corners, and if Kuroro didn’t know better, he’d think they’d dilated in the darkness. A lick of cold dragged up his spine. “I might have an educated guess, though, if you’re humble enough to listen.”

Kuroro didn’t breathe, voice braced on the back of a hiss. “Call me a poor man prying.”

 _“Hanahaki._ ”

Frowning, Kuroro tried to find a loose memory tied to the word. He came up empty handed—he couldn’t place the word or its origin, the sound foreign on every syllable. It wasn’t often Kuroro was caught unaware. “Explain.”

“It’s an old wives’ tale, really,” Illumi said, raising his palm against the sky, eyeing it. “They say a seed is planted in a person’s lungs when they meet their personal love. If that love happens to go unreciprocated, the seed flowers until they’re unable to breathe; shredded lungs, full, bloody and fragrant. It’s all very poetic.”

His pause was deafening.

When Illumi’s fingers dipped into his sternum, nails scraping, his touch was cold. “And that looks a lot like a seed, wouldn’t you say?”

His touch was cold. Kuroro’s blood ran colder.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“In the simplest terms:” Illumi’s head fell and so did his hand. “You’re going to die a very painful death, Kuroro Lucifer, and it’s no one’s fault but yours.”

//

Breathing was hard and it had nothing to do with the ache in his chest. Kuroro didn't watch Illumi walk off, eyes iced along the shifting water with a growing sense of trepidation _._ _Ludicrous_. Even when Illumi rolled a palm and brushed him off— _“I don’t personally feed into that nonsense, though you do have a penchant for the absurd, don’t you?”—_ Kuroro couldn’t keep his mind from searing flame-blue with the word.

_Love._

Red flashed at the thought.

_I’m not in love._

He pushed off the railing with more force than need be, walking backward off-kilter. He’d come for answers and left with questions. Zoldycks were all the same: stone-faced sphinxes. Every little tidbit of information had collateral strung behind it, collateral that would surface at the most inconvenient time. Kuroro’s anger reintroduced itself to his body in a wave of curling fists, knuckles bleached ivory and bleeding. This wouldn’t do.

This wouldn’t do at all.

If Illumi was right, then this couldn't be exorcized—this wasn’t _nen._ Kuroro refused to humor the possibility. Love didn’t suit his kind, he wasn’t built for it. If anything, it was the one thing Kuroro's reading couldn't remedy. No amount of tomes, mythologies, dead romances— _Orpheus and Eurydice, Qais and Layla_ —would bring love to life inside him.

Storming back into the tier's hall, Kuroro flattened his back across the glass terrace doors, chest heaving, eyes sliding closed. _T_ _his cannot be happening._

It was only when he opened them, that he caught sight of someone staring.

He'd miscalculated. A drawn, expensive miscalculation which saw his _nen_ undocked and rippling. 

_Fuck_. 

Before the Kurta's eyes could blink themselves to full recognition in the better, sleeker lighting of a much wealthier deck, Kuroro made out of there like a dead man at gunpoint.

Chest on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **fateline:** _often referred to as our life path, or destiny; the more pronounced, the more fortunate the individual._
> 
> it's been so long since i've taken a swing at a multichapter fic & this idea wouldn't leave me alone haa kurapika's in for a wild one, i can tell you that much 
> 
> let me know if you guys liked it/want me to continue!
> 
> deuces, cool cats


	2. act ii. headline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> went blind proofreading this, good goddess. i don't even think i landed everything lmao do let me know if you find an oopsie

Breaking into the Kakin library was child’s play.

He would’ve enjoyed it more if it wasn’t for the hammering reconstruction of Illumi’s voice in his head, _hanahaki, hanahaki, hanahaki._ Kuroro bit into the word again trying to place era or location, language, mythology, anything at all. It was driving him into gradual insanity. Illumi had been cryptic, leaving out cornerstones like the myth’s historical origins and source material. No details on reversibility, no examples of men who’d fallen to it, nothing, he provided _nothing._

Then again, none of this was much of a surprise. Zoldyck intelligence was never free.

Kuroro pressed a tongue to his canine; framing a piece of information, though, was as good as corrupting it. Illumi knew that. He had the art of exploitation down to a fault, phrasing facts in varying degrees of _fuck you_ and _you’ll never be able to use this._ Kuroro had a better chance of shaking down a magic eight ball for answers than a Zoldyck.

Bracing his back against the wall, he watched two guards pace by. They looked more invested in their side-conversation than securing the entrance. Kuroro guessed they couldn’t get too much traffic, what with nobles being the shallow fucks they tended to be. All the easier for him. Ducking through the hand-carved doorway and into the library, Kuroro fought a wry smile; _well, can’t say I’m shocked._

The room was colossal—decked out in apollonian _excess._

Because _of course it was._

The whole display was meant to be more decorative than informative, sanded mahogany cases painted with gold detail, burgundy tapestries speaking of godless luxury, walls brushed fresco. Incense clung to the furniture, keeping the air dense enough to be characteristic Kakin. It was temple-like in grandeur for something on _a_ _fucking boat._ If anything, it was a glorified shelf for the regime’s political philosophies and contorted histories.

Corruption really was a thing of beauty—literally.

Kuroro wasn’t there to topple the monarchy, though, _that’s for next week._

 _Now, let’s see,_ the place was void of people, silence only broken by the drone of the Whale’s engine. It was nothing above a purr underfoot, soft enough to go unfelt by the common person. How comforting, the ship wasn’t about to sink and kill them all before Kuroro managed to die in a more stupid, byronic manner. The universe did have a cruel sense of humor after all.

He navigated the bookcases, running his fingers over gold plaques with names and dates. The petty purse-snatcher in him wanted to break a couple off, pocket them for melting. He didn’t—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t fist-fighting the urge. A younger him, all bathroom sink tattoos and threadbare jeans, would’ve cut his teeth on the opportunity.

_Focus._

A burn curled and uncurled in his chest, a candle in the wind. He had to get this show on the road, the faster, the better. Part of Kuroro refused to believe the _hanahaki_ bullshit; he wasn’t superstitious and internalizing a legend he’d never heard of before felt like a miscalculation in the making. lllumi wasn’t a liar, but being honest and being manipulative weren’t mutually exclusive vices. Hisoka wasn’t above doing it, and if their nonsensical arrangement was much to go by, Kuroro figured they had similar moral reasoning.

Ah, yes, their arrangement.

Their _engagement_.

Ridiculous. Kuroro couldn’t wrap his head around the set-up, contractual or not. Nothing about them lent itself to romance or companionship. He wasn’t about to claim he knew much about either— _can’t say I want to, really_ —but both Hisoka and Illumi were more than willing to trumpet their depravity, with one powdering pearls in his fist and the other dusting bones just the same. Being bound to either for any period of time was more a self-imposed prison sentence than a love story.

Love story.

Dragging his nails against book spines, Kuroro’s mind lingered on the phrase. That’s what Illumi had called his situation, a morbid, one-sided love story. A brand of universal irony that belonged in literature, not real life. But for the words _love_ and _story_ to fall together, two people had to as well. There was only one face that came to mind.

Sun-baked skin, rage bladed between teeth, eyes hollowed out garnet.

Kurta _._

Kuroro swallowed down mire. It’d been a day or so since he’d spoken with Illumi, and just as long since that deliberate gaze landed onto him. Kuroro didn’t miss how his lungs chalked when their eyes met, how he’d lost the capacity—the _will_ —to breathe for a moment too long. With the Kurta standing there, Kuroro’s body caved in on itself, and of all types of surrender, he hadn’t pictured his own packaged in gentle curiosity and the gape of petal-soft lips.

 _Gods,_ what a mess. While recognition didn’t land at the time, complacency wouldn’t do Kuroro much good. The minute he’d vaulted out of that hall, the Kurta must’ve put two and two together—and this time, the answer wasn’t fish.

It was Spider.

Not only had Kuroro cracked his own cover wide open, his _nen_ signature was left out to dry. In Yorkshin, everything had happened too fast: the cars, the cigars, the chaos. The Kurta had sealed his powers before Kuroro was able to bring himself out of _zetsu_ , self-sabotaging the only chance he had to get a feel for it. There was no way he would’ve recognized that _nen_ in isolation afterward.

Until now.

 _But you finding me isn’t the issue, is it?_ Breath crowded, Kuroro came to a stop at the head of an aisle, flanked by meters of books, _the cyanide heartburn is._

As prepared as Kuroro was to embrace denial, there was no room for it: the Kurta was the one. He was the presence that wouldn’t leave, the one who’d triggered the tattoo and the pain, and at just the thought of him, Kuroro’s chest struggled to rise. There was no one else it could’ve been, no one else who’d set him on fire, in mind, and body, and h—

Kuroro ignored the hitch in his chest.

_I have to get rid of this thing._

He walked down the aisle, attention swinging across titles arranged by location. Given how little he knew, the system was unhelpful, _but what was that term Illumi used?_ Old wives tale. Widely held belief, unburied myth. Meteor City never spoke of _hanahaki_ or anything similar, and the lore didn’t follow into places Kuroro had been. His frustration seethed; on the off chance he’d missed it on a heist or in a book, it was impossible to look up every folktale from every country he’d ever been to. He also couldn’t discount the possibility of it not existing at all.

Illumi, for all he knew, could be playing spades with his patience.

Throat clotted, Kuroro came to a halt.

 _Republic of Padokea_ sat there, etched in gold.

Sliding out a book on its middle histories, Kuroro dropped to the ground and leaned into a corner. Padokea was as good a place to start as any; it was where the Zoldycks founded their enterprise, and if there was anything memorable about Illumi, it was how uninspired he was. He parroted words and mirrored morality with the same ease he used to end lives, no care for consequence. Any information he internalized had to come from a source he trusted.

A source he was raised with. 

An hour into reading, Kuroro landed on something promising. _Multilingual Establishment in the Teiberi Era._ The paragraph was a few pages long, indented with information on Padokean conquest and the integration of foreign languages into their vernacular.

His fingers curled over the page, appreciating its smoothness. Kakin did not cut corners with their spending, the book’s value was written into the weight of its paper and the uninterrupted glide of its print. For a moment, Kuroro lost himself in just that: feeling. Shoulders relaxing, he skimmed the page, flicking past familiar and unfamiliar words.

The tone was dry, like any lingual explanation should be, and it took him under a minute to find a lead. _Hanahaki_ was nowhere to be found—but other words were. Words that, when he mouthed them, landed on his tongue with the same rise and fall. Kuroro’s heart picked up. The hybrid dialect hailed a single era: the pre-republic. Back when Padokea hadn’t instilled a senate yet, running centralized power through the classy, imperial mess-making of an empire.

An empire which, as chance would have it, controlled three consecutive Japponese dynasties.

Kuroro sneered.

 _Jackpot_.

From there, it was easy money. Translated books on Jappon and its mythology were available by the dozen. Kuroro grabbed an armful—after swiping the ones on Padokea, because he could, therefore would—and headed back to his spot. Crossing his legs, he cracked open the first of three volumes, hardcover thick enough to weigh against his knee. Kuroro reached into his coat and dragged out his personal notes. They were a set of bulleted chicken-scratch symptoms— _burning sensation, choking, henna, seed development—_ without proper interpretation. Love wasn’t on the list, and maybe it should’ve been, because it didn’t take very long for the word to surface.

Inked to perfection under _Hanahaki Byou,_ was a tagline.

_‘Glory be it, to love which stiffens the soul.’_

Resin coated the roof of Kuroro’s mouth. Any fleeting amusement or sense of accomplishment was lanced straight through. Kuroro didn’t hesitate, grabbing a stack of pages to turn to the correct one. His fingers were rigid against the book’s corners, curling to keep it in place.

The piece was brief, only a page and a half, but before Kuroro could deal with goddamn _brevity_ , something vibrant caught his attention. A watercolor painting of a man sat under his hand, old but revitalized. The mouth was unhinged, crowded with a bouquet of blood-heavy carnations, petals clustered and bruised. Pallor defined him, vines weaving in and out of his throat, morbid in how their thorns parted skin and disappeared under it.

Kuroro was not of the faint heart.

His eyes slit, frustration rising faster, hotter than heartburn. Turning away from the painting, he settled his focus on the passages. _The Paramour’s Parasite,_ an urge to carve out his kidney came with reading past that. 

_‘Planted at birth—’_

_‘—each individual’s sole, fated soulmate,’_

_‘—may not be the same for both parties; therefore—’_

_‘Not all cases result in death if requited—’_

_‘—origin by Tennin* (i.e. fae, nymph), as a hex on lascivious mortals who shunned heart for beauty—’_

Kuroro’s mind ran itself over, trying to process information in a single heartbeat. The myth was more reckoning than solution, an angry deity wronged by some vain, stupid human. Kuroro’d heard that type of story one too many times for it to excite him. Before, though, those stories had taken up no place in his reality, in any reality.

Despite being saturated in cliche, Kuroro let the words settle over him.

How petty gods were.

Every explanation read less like an unreciprocated romance and more like damnation; the world was thinning itself down, planting flowers in the angriest part of him, and Kuroro could do little to stop it. It was exhausting.

Throat aching, Kuroro placed a palm at its base. His heartbeat pooled in his clavicle, growing forceful when he set his list of symptoms into the centerfold. Eyes flying past the myth, he observed every bullet check out—heartburn; fume-laden breath; copal resinate, plant dependent; visible manifestation; suffocation; esophageal/tracheal floral purging—

He froze.

_Oh._

_Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me._

Kuroro's blood didn't get the chance to settle, nearing voices cutting his session short. Without a breath of hesitation, he tore the page out of the tome and tore out of there with the same heavy gut he’d had stealing for the first time.

Only this time, apple wasn’t what this tasted like.

//

Death was an inconvenience.

When the Gene’i Ryodan’s first heist left him with empty hands, an empty stomach and a bullet in his knee, Kuroro remembered smiling—like he wasn’t afraid, like he knew he should’ve been. At the time, death was charged and electric, an adrenaline-laced pop of color. For someone so used to seeing the world in shades of brick-red and asphalt, it was easy to celebrate. Like everything, the years managed to dull that down. Thrill simmered to excitement, then again to necessity.

And Kuroro had died too many deaths to fear its coming.

He bled himself dry on stained-glass miscalculation, tapped a gun to his memory and learned to forget. Having a propensity for violence did that to a man—voided his right to be anything but godless. Kuroro wasn’t allowed to fear death; being willing to end a life meant being willing to lose his own. Everything came with consequence, every decision bore its own weight in penalty and payoff.

_But this isn’t just a second on the guillotine, is it?_

This wasn’t laying his neck down for a moment and losing his breath the next. Kuroro—a killer who was quick and swift and merciless—would meet his end via the slow-burning hearth of humanity’s softest emotion. The thought welcomed a string of nausea. If the seed wasn’t what killed him, the irony just might.

Kissing his teeth, he kept his center of gravity close to the ground, steps silent. His thoughts clamored, which made navigating the Kakin deck harder than it should’ve been. Getting in had been a breeze, it was leaving that was the issue. He slid down the corridor, unable to appreciate any of it, not the ivory painted gold, not the carpeting, not the occasional piece of silk-ink artwork.

Painted petals, ruptured throats, blood-laden thorns.

That sight occupied his mind instead without settling, and Kuroro didn’t think it would anytime soon. Locking his jaw, he forced himself back to reality. All he needed was a shred of focus to cut through his bitterness. The last time he’d felt this way—balance lost on a tightrope, mind strung—he’d been a stupid teenager. Losing his mind seemed sexy, back then, rebellious.

It wasn’t. 

There was no worse outcome than having his sanity hinge on a _bedtime story._ But it did, and irritation was nothing save seasoning for growing dread; this _hanahaki_ thing was legit. The longer the word rung in his head and ricocheted in the hollow of his lungs, the more his mind clung onto it. For someone who didn’t feed into the unknown, Kuroro started believing it.

Paramour’s Parasite, the other woman’s heartache. All metonymies were good at doing was making a death sentence sound pretty. Whoever wrote that chapter either didn’t believe any of it to be true, or wished it was; Kuroro wasn’t sure which of the two was worse. Had he been in any other situation, the concept of parasitic love would’ve been interesting—committed, raw, formidable. Had he been in any other situation, Kuroro wouldn’t have believed any of it.

The page burned in his pocket.

Tragedy appealed to people for a reason. That visceral, undeniable pain was better put on display than it was experienced. As easy as it would’ve been to brush off, Kuroro knew there was no use. _Hanahaki_ was the sole, reasonable explanation, _nen_ aside. Hell, even if a power signature had been present, it didn’t take a genius to see the connection. Morbid inspiration, maybe. Kuroro’s palms trembled in borderline disbelief, anger.

_Luck’s got it in for me._

Pressing his back against the wall, Kuroro waited for a bodyguard to pass by. They all looked the same, decked out in suits far too expensive for their paycheck, shoes glossy and laced tight. _He kind of looked like that too,_ he mused, moving in behind the man as he crossed, _so serious and formal._

Oh.

_Oh._

It clicked in the same beat Kuroro twisted the man’s head.

_The Kurta works for Kakin._

There was a moment of quiet, the man’s body dropping to its knees then face-first into the carpeting. Kuroro didn’t blink, eyes rich with cold calculation. That’s why the chain-user was there, it had to be. He’d been walking with a Zodiac, had access to several decks, and looked more solemn than a man at his father’s funeral. Crouching down to the crumpled form, Kuroro rested a tongue against the corner of his lips.

The situation kept winding itself tighter.

 _So be it._ He made quick work of disrobing the corpse, shuffling out of his own clothes and into the suit. Dragging the body by the hair, neck tendons loose and torn, Kuroro threw it into a hallway storage unit. _What a hassle_. He summoned Bandit’s Secret and tucked away his coat, pulling out threadbare gauze to hide his cross.

Dusting his shoulders, Kuroro locked the unit and walked away.

An epilogue where he died before Hisoka was unacceptable. Kuroro wouldn’t be reduced to a brief mention over merlot, murder and his own still body. If history was written by the victors, there was wisdom to fearing the storyteller; his well-earned notoriety wouldn’t be treated kindly in the hands of Hisoka. He’d make Kuroro into a lullaby.

_Morior invictus._

Death before defeat.

_I’ll take you to hell myself if I have to._

Kuroro was going to fix this, no flower would be the nail in his coffin.

He didn’t look around as he walked. The entire royal deck felt charged, worlds away from the lower tiers. Virgin _nen_ ran through the walls, an electric current left seeping and uncontrolled. The Kakin were powerful little princes, it seemed, still green and undisciplined. Kuroro docked the thought and stored it for later, striding past a pair of bodyguards with square-shouldered boldness.

And as expected, they didn't blink a look in his direction.

There was one glaring solution to his problem: the Kurta. Another death sentence in and of itself, Kuroro didn’t need a chain around the neck to remind him. Despite that, he couldn’t help but humor the idea. He didn’t _love_ the man—but he didn’t hate him, either. Grieving beauty and unraveling resolve were appealing qualities in their own right. Just as appealing, he decided, as dated rage and broken breath and storming blood.

The Kurta was as powerful as he was stunning, a combination Kuroro’d never seen in action. It was always one or the other, never both in tandem. Lovely things were fragile, and strength came with its share of scars and homemade horror.

Like Illumi.

_Like me._

He was nothing like either of them. He didn’t run on gold and gasoline, no—there wasn’t a shred of greed in that boy’s body. Kuroro blinked, his step hitching; _he’s no child, is he?_ The image of a suit and a snarl surfaced, pushing aside the colorful Kurtan embroidery Kuroro’d been busy visualizing. _Ah,_ how could he have forgotten. He wasn’t dealing with a devastatingly fierce tribal so much as a bitter, gun-savvy god.

There was no stealing love in this part of town.

He’d have to earn it.

Kuroro’s chest tightened, saliva tasting more of blood than sap. He’d never tried earning a goddamn thing in his life. Things he did merit, like title and infamy, came by force of his power more than a desire to play nice. It made no sense to grovel for something that was right there for the taking. By society’s standards, that made him a monster, and by logic’s, reasonable.

Copper skin and red eyes came to mind, and for a moment, Kuroro reconsidered. The thought wasn’t sharp enough to change his mind, but it lingered long enough to stay for good. _I don’t know why it had to be you,_ Kuroro slid into another hallway, long and winding, body looking for an aura he knew he’d find, _but I don’t think I mind that it is._

If he had to earn anything, of course it would happen like this—a challenge with his soul on trial.

And the judge, jury, and executioner as the man who hated him most.

A small smile rose.

Kuroro had taken everything into account back during the massacre, from the blood to the rot to the net worth of organs. What he hadn’t controlled for was blonde hair left long, braided chains, the incense of slow-burning rage. No, Kuroro hadn’t considered the possibility of a survivor when he ordered Lukso’s genocide. Part of it was arrogance. The Gene’i Ryodan didn’t make mistakes and they didn’t leave ends untied. As their leader, he ingrained meticulousness into their agenda.

That was their mode of operation.

_How far the mighty have fallen._

Kuroro hadn’t controlled for the possibility that, one day, that survivor would be his only salvation.

But even in absolute ruin, the Kurta was nothing short of mythic. That power made Kuroro fond, and rationality be damned, it made sense to chase after it. That was what he’d done with his Spiders, combined awe and potential, admiration and volatility. The Spider’s existence hinged on that very couplet: fondness and power.

With newfound resolve, Kuroro’s decision solidified. He was going to make this work, one way or another. Their histories were a hurdle he was more than willing to set ablaze. _I don’t need your forgiveness to have your love._ Kuroro could live without it, that pomegranate pulp of clemency, insofar that he had everything else.

 _The rest of you—_ turning the corner, Kuroro came to a still in front of oak doors, sculpted by ton— _belongs to me._

_//_

And through them, lay Kuroro’s biggest risk.

 _Nen_ wafted past floor lines, a rolling unseen smoke which billowed out from under the door. It came in waves, the blue agave Kuroro had swallowed back in Yorkshin, the base notes of oakmoss and white wood; it lingered, framing the heavy set doors, pooling into wooden notches. Despite his composure, Kuroro’s blood ran hotter, faster. His body leaned into the aura, eyes slipping closed for a single inhale. There was no doubt about it.

_He’s here._

The _nen_ was richer up close, stronger than he recalled. Kuroro had been able to follow it down hallways and up lines and lines of _nen_ laden ballrooms. Thick moss, sap-like, distinct and choking in the sweetest way. Kuroro ran a tongue against his teeth, his own aura pressed down thin, hanging close to skin. _Zetsu_ would do for now, until he managed to think of a game plan.

But game plans took too long—and Kuroro hadn’t been very patient as of late. Instinct got him to the door, intellect would get him through. _Besides,_ Kuroro pressed a palm to the heart of the entrance, _can’t say improv isn’t a useful skill to practice._

With measured strength, he eased them open.

And was met with the slam of a chain, spearing past his head.

He should’ve been scared, really, on some level. The spade buried itself into the hallway wall, veins of shattered plaster branching from it. Kuroro dragged his eyes across the plaited chain and down its length to—

He blanked.

_Is that a fucking child?_

Rage accounted for, the Kurta’s chains were violent around one wrist, with a baby’s head rested against the other. It curled into his chest, forehead banked on his collarbone, body no bigger than a forearm; Kuroro would’ve given himself room to gape if the Kurta’s nen wasn’t hurricaning around them. It was a wonder the kid hadn’t woken up shrieking.

“Well,” Kuroro started, monotone insultingly casual. “That’s one interpretation of hospitality.”

The Kurta’s eyes were a lid, unforgiving black. Up close, the exhaustion Kuroro noticed before was amplified; every tilt of his body translated loose-boned aggression, blond hair no longer curling at the ends. Even if his skin hadn’t forfeit whiskey gold, his eyes were stamped with the wax-seal of sleepless nights. Kuroro didn’t dare look around, didn’t try taking his gaze off the other.

It was one thing to be reckless, another to be stupid.

The man didn’t speak, his arm outstretched, the press of his suit flawless. Kuroro hated it. His chest caught, and he cleared his throat of viscid dissatisfaction. The sentiment was unwelcome, and he couldn't understand why it clenched his teeth or drenched him in betrayal. The Kurta had lost the fine tune of his heritage, proximity wouldn’t bring it back. There were some things Kuroro thought would never change.

Things that shouldn’t change.

His Spider, his mind, his greed, his loyalty— _and you._ The Kurta had been a totem of continuity, represented all what Kuroro had done and what he was and what he would always be. He was built to be the constant, one of the things Kuroro’s mind immortalized in amber. _But you aren’t the same._

Nothing was.

Ice reintroduced itself to his voice, “Not going to offer me a drink?”

“I’d rather not.” Apathy and accent were poured into the words, heavy and deliberate. His pupils stayed dilated and artificial, irises darkening as each second passed. Kuroro could make out color shifting beneath grey, nebulous.

“Suppose I’m lucky then,” Kuroro responded, even. “I’m not conditioned against poison.”

“Funny,” the Kurta pressed the sleeping child closer, chains not retracting. His cadence was just as toneless, the word falling foreign under his tongue. Kuroro took satisfaction in the purr of authenticity; if his heritage wasn’t visible, it was no doubt vocal. “I’m sure they’ll crack a joke or two at your funeral pyre. Some real knee-slappers.”

Kuroro smiled without humor. “I know some clowns.”

The movement was subtle, a flick of the wrist Kuroro would’ve missed if he hadn’t been so concentrated. He tilted his neck in time for the chain to drag back, almost spearing his nape on its way. The Kurta’s face didn’t shift, not a hair on his head moved as the iron flew into his sleeve, rippling and roaring. Kuroro couldn’t help it; he licked his lips, lungs flooding with magma. He fought it down, trying to concentrate on the threat more than the throb.

_He’s—violent._

“Get lost.”

 _Breathtaking._ Kuroro was winded, lungs caught between sting and suffocation. He ignored the order, stepping himself into the room. The strides weren't cautious or courteous, he wasn't catering comfort where he knew he couldn't. Breathless didn't mean voiceless, and when Kuroro spoke, it was with the confidence of a man entitled. "You've got a name. I want it."

A pale brow hitched. “You’ve got some fucking nerve.”

Without shame, Kuroro admired the carve of those cheeks, the melted kohl that darkened eye-corners and bled into lashes. _Hanahaki_ aside, fate could’ve done much worse picking. The man wasn't bad to look at—Kuroro had an appetite for pretty things—and he had the guts to match. There was no trace of a bleeding heart, no wait or compassion. No fistfight in a limousine could salvage the ruin of those bones, and the fact had Kuroro aching with appreciation.

_You could turn men to stone, with eyes like those._

“Give me your name.” Kuroro insisted, taking another ungranted step forward. His hostility thawed, blood running warm at the prospect of this interaction. Every outcome was a dangerous one, and Kuroro never marked himself down as a thrill seeker. The fire stayed, though, and he made no effort to quell it. "I want your name."

Eyes flashing, the Kurta's lip wrung in the first lick of emotion since the start of their interaction. "Eat your heart out. You don't get to want anything, least of all from me."

Kuroro wanted lots of things.

 _You_ , crowning them all. 

"Then give it to me," Kuroro breathed through another step, the Kurta switching feet to shield the child. "Because you choose to."

He met Kuroro's frosted gaze with a mouthful of hiss. “And why would I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Names are powerful things." Everything about him was made to menace; his lips sat pressed, his foot angled, his fingers brushing the mildest tighten into the baby's hair. It was discipline at its finest, his guard towering over the room in the promise of force, if needed. Kuroro didn't want any of it, the high walls, the dispassion, the calculation. He wanted volatility—rage, riot, revolt. He wanted a broken nose in the backseat, a stained woolen mantle. Kuroro wanted Lukso. "You haven’t earned the luxury of knowing mine.”

There it was again. 

_Earn._

Kuroro gave himself a second to recalibrate. He'd been willing to compromise, to some degree, but he didn't imagine being pushed off mountain summits so soon. Authenticity came cased with concession, and as pain thickened straight down his sternum, Kuroro decided now and later sat close enough together. He dipped his chin low, mocking respect and good manner. “Kuroro Lucifer.”

The Kurta blinked, expression flickering. “Excuse me?”

“My name,” Kuroro clarified, softening the hard cuts of his face into a smile, not quite free of malice. _Let’s see if you’re as well-behaved as you pretend to be, dear._ “Seems right to give you mine before asking for yours.”

“That’s assuming I want it,” the Kurta was quick to cut. “I don’t.”

"Oh?" Kuroro's head cocked at the petulance. 

Bow lips thinned to nothing. 

“So be it.” Kuroro licked the corner of his mouth, studying the highs and lows of that scowl. Biting down a complacent smile, he ran faux-sincerity over his words. “Can I ask why you don’t, then?”

“Can I ask why you do?” the man threw back, mocking the tilt of Kuroro’s head with his own acrid display. 

“I like knowing things.”

“You like labeling things.”

Kuroro's mouth clicked closed.

The Kurta shook his head, earring catching light from an overhead chandelier, stone casting it back onto his skin. “You’re not looking for a name, you’re playing for a trophy.”

 _I don’t play,_ amusement numbed into versed indifference. _I win._

“I’m not here to fight you,” Kuroro spoke after a pause, raising both arms in a show of meaningless surrender. _Nen_ didn’t need physical assurance, and even if Bandit’s Secret did, he was the only one here who knew it. He watched soft features drop into a frown, that mind working in quick rounds to rationalize the claim. Kuroro offered the Kurta a small smile—almost sweet, almost sympathetic.

A gun clicked.

Mother _fucker_.

Kuroro fought strident irritation when a steel nozzle pressed up against his nape, cold and biting. Realization was quick enough to warrant a flash of it, though; the Kurta's _nen_ had been dense and aggressive enough to eclipse any other presence. He would've found it impressive, if it hadn't earned him a semi-automatic to the fucking skull. The Kurta's eyes hung over his shoulder for a moment, making eye contact with their trigger-happy company.

_Just my luck._

_"Woble!”_

The shriek had Kuroro’s eyes lidding and his mouth rolling; _goddamn it._ Wearing emotions on his collar for all to see was unbecoming, but after keeping himself under strict reins for so long, he allowed the annoyance to wash over him; the situation kept tripping over every opportunity. This Whale kept trying his patience at every damn turn. _Murphy's Law,_ the gun parted his hair, bruising, as a woman flanked past him. _Whatever can go wrong, will._

Because of course it would. 

Kuroro watched her rush for the child in a flurry of panic, hair rings of sea-urchin black. Worry was driven into the lows of her expression, beauty cheapened by stress, sharpened by strain. He couldn’t blame her, the Kurta’d had his arm up, placed for a reckoning. If Kuroro were to chance a guess, she trusted those instincts. As she should.

One didn’t leave their fucking infant with just anyone.

“Walk.” The voice came from behind him, commanding and cautious and distinctly male. Kuroro deferred obeying, eyeing the Kurta for permission he didn’t need. Recovering from the flurry, his face set back to stone, and he met Kuroro's gaze with a deliberate lack of emotion.

“You heard Bill.”

“Bill,” Kuroro repeated, musing. “Doesn't get more pedestrian. I have to say, you’re all terrible at this hospitality business.”

 _“Walk._ ”

_Don’t kill him, don’t kill him, don’t kill—_

Gritting his teeth, Kuroro locked his palms behind his head and sauntered forward a handful of steps. Disinterest and civility came hand in hand. “Guns, chains, children. Never a boring moment with you, Kurta.”

The woman’s frown was more concerned than curious when their eyes met. She had nothing of Kakin, her hair too full, her eyes too round. No wealth sat in the hollow of her cheeks or the ease of panic. Written into her was an eventide as sharp as Meteor City's; this wasn't someone who came from money. People who had nothing either feared nothing—or feared everything. Uncomfortable under his prying gaze, she turned to the Kurta. "Kurapika, who is this?”

Kuroro's eyes flashed, and his smile was marble shrapnel: merciless.

Kurapika.

_And scene, my love._

Like clockwork, that gaze slid shut. When it reopened, he met Kuroro’s with silent defiance. _Too late._ It was easy to tap into charm after that. Kuroro granted the woman a gentle grin, built on softened lips and peaking brows. “Allow me to introduce myself, I’m—”

“—a very, very bad man.” Kurapika was tapped out of tolerance. Kuroro’s excitement took precedence over smoke-thick choking; _yes, get angry_. Even the coldest parts of Kurapika’s patience liquified, lip siding high over his teeth. “No amount of contrived charisma’ll change that.”

The gun and its owner rounded, coming to stand by Kurapika without dropping the aim on Kuroro's head. The room basked in stillness, and even with unmuzzled ammunition pointed in his direction, Kuroro's eyes didn't fall of Kurapika. _Thank you,_ one lung tightened, _for the thrill._

_For the ruin_

A piercing cry shattered the silence.

The child’s body trembled with stress, no amount of rocking helping it quiet. Kurapika tilted his head in Bill’s direction—a man who looked as ordinary as his name afforded—without losing sight of Kuroro. “Take Queen Oito—” _Queen?_ “—and the Prince somewhere safe.”

“But—”

“I’ll be fine.” Kurapika pressed, finality woven into his tone. Kuroro wore dumb-passing indifference as Bill hesitated, blinking when it earned him a scowl. _Yes,_ complacency reintroduced itself in silent, rolling waves. _Get out._

“Are you sure?” Bill's aim didn’t waver, his gun a trigger press away from blowing clear through Kuroro’s skull. A boring way to die, by bullet. Not that Kuroro would ever allow such a thing. “I don’t trust this guy.”

“You shouldn’t.” Kurapika muttered, talking more to himself than the room. “That’s why I need you to take them out of here. Make sure you’re not followed by any of the other guards.”

“Kurapika—”

“They’re our first,” his eyes flashed in Bill’s direction, “and _only_ priority.”

The gun dropped. Kuroro smiled, pleasant and petty, waving the Queen and her guard out with pianist fingers. Kurapika ignored him for the length of time it took them to leave, and Kuroro used the opportunity to steal a look around. Now that he thought about it, the room was fit for royalty in more than name. The chambers were coated in shades of crimson and citrine, wooden canopy bed wide and waxed to a gleam. Kuroro wanted to knock Kurapika out, get rummaging.

When a throat cleared, Kuroro’s gaze flicked back to focus.

“I’m going to give you a minute more than you deserve,” Kurapika crossed his arms, severe looking. “And you’d be wise to use it, _Lucifer._ ”

//

“I saw you yesterday.”

In hindsight, it would’ve been a good time to have a game plan. Kuroro watched Kurapika’s hip cock, one foot rising at the heel. There was no warmth to his posture, no courtesy in his claim. He was doing exactly what he’d promised to do: give Kuroro a minute, and not a heartbeat more, to explain himself. _My,_ Kuroro made a show of ignoring him, choosing to look around instead, _you're inflexible, aren't you, spitfire?_

“I _said—_ ”

“I heard you.” Kuroro murmured, walking up to Oito’s table de toilette, picking up a blown glass perfume bottle. The scent of oud buried itself under nail, oil sticking to his finger pads. Like everything else, from the emerald bangles to the crystal light fixtures, the smell bled opulence. “I did too. I saw you twice, actually.”

Kurapika frowned from his periphery. “Didn’t take you for a stalker.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Kuroro scoffed, setting down the perfume in favor of a hand mirror, its back set with ribbons of mother pearl. “You were with a Zodiac. It was coincidence, if anything, and I’d rather not be jailed on this hell ship. Most of it reeks of sweat and piss as is.”

Kurapika hummed.

Kuroro’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, _he’s amused._ Raising the mirror over his shoulder, their eyes met; sure enough, a self-congratulating tilt brandished Kurapika’s features. He didn’t speak, and that was enough incentive for Kuroro to set down the mirror and turn to him, back resting against the mahogany dresser. “Got something to say?”

“Other than filth suits you?” Kurapika intoned, cruel. “Not really, no.”

Kuroro stared. “Check yourself.”

“Walk to hell,” Kurapika replied, casual. A chain dropped to hang from his finger, swinging. The action was definite enough to be threatening without having to act. “Your minute’s now pushing five, and I’m not going to be this generous for long.”

“Yes, very generous,” Kuroro crossed his arms and ankles, head cocked. Whatever shifting color was behind Kurapika’s eyes had long since settled, his expression succumbing to stoicism once again. Kuroro had recognized that shift in Yorkshin as well. _This is different, though._

Because at least Yorkshin saw latent wrath.

What Kurapika was saddling him with now was a cheap, rendered version of disillusionment. Kuroro refused to settle for that. If he was to work for Kurapika’s affection, he’d work for the Kurapika his mind attached itself to. Not this. _I don’t deal in counterfeits, sweetheart._

Breaking the silence, Kuroro clicked his tongue.

“You’re on this ship for a reason,” _because I know you are,_ “and I’m certain I can help you with it.”

For all intents and purposes, it was a shot in the dark to get them interacting. Given the way Kurapika’s lips fell apart to make room for disbelief, Kuroro ventured he was onto something. As noble as guarding a queen and her infant child was, it wasn't enough. Kurapika was too smart, too hungry to give himself to a cause that selfless. Nothing would keep him on a ship written to sink unless it had a grander payoff.

And on a note as predictable as any, Kurapika’s hiss was hot enough to catch fire. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need _you_.”

“And I couldn’t agree more.” Kuroro’s voice was all loft and no lie, an idea forming in his mind. “You can, and will, accomplish all your goals whether or not I’m there for it—but you might be overlooking something. A caveat.”

Kurapika’s silence sat between them, coiled.

Tilting his head upwards, Kuroro’s eyes landed on the baroque ceiling corners. Every last detail was driven to perfection, and a part of him was almost disappointed the ocean swallowed things whole. “Success comes with a price, and I have a feeling yours comes with a body count.”

When Kurapika held his tongue through that statement as well, Kuroro knew he’d hit home.

“Now, if I were to take the brunt of things,” he bargained, neck still craned but canting just enough to have their eyes meet. “None of your company have to lose their lives, right? Two doves, one bullet. An enemy isn’t something you’ll be crying over.” _Not as of now, anyway._

Kurapika’s indignation was raring, Kuroro saw it in the clenching and unclenching of his fingers. His expression was free of everything, even suspicion, when he spoke. “How considerate.”

“Certainly.” Kuroro smiled. “I’m a businessman.”

Couldn’t be too far from the truth, they were all corrupt.

“That connotes an exchange.” Kurapika snapped, wry and perceptive as ever. “What’s the catch?”

Kuroro’s smile matured into a grin, a narrow show of teeth as he lowered his head. Using his back alone, he pushed off the dresser and walked in slow, deliberate steps toward Kurapika. _Nen_ rippling around them, Kuroro got in closer, enjoying the burn on his skin more than the burn braiding over his ribs. Kurapika made no move backward, broad shoulders unyielding.

Unlike his aura, Kurapika’s scent didn’t speak of agave or mist; the amber of cologne sat heavy on his collar, lining the length of his neck, the hollowed divot behind his ear. Kuroro drank that in too, the defiance, and when Kurapika had to crane his head for their eyes to meet, he had to silence the drumming in his chest.

“You’re a smart man,” Kuroro reached forward, not brushing Kurapika’s hair, but hovering close enough to tease the air by it. “A smart, very well-connected man.”

Kurapika spoke through grit teeth. “What do you want?”

And his plan locked into place.

“Hisoka Morrow.” Kuroro said without a trace of hesitance or dishonesty. “More specifically, his head.”

Kurapika’s expression went through evolution—from soft confusion, to steady realization, to flatline disapproval. “I’m not going to do your bidding. I’m not going to kill someone by proxy.”

“And that’s not what I’m asking.” Kuroro murmured, voice held low and indifferent. “I want information on his whereabouts, valid or void.”

Kurapika took his time responding, eyes flicking between Kuroro’s own as he balanced the incentive in his mind. Before too long, his eyes fell to slits. “I don’t trust you. What says you won’t fuck me over?”

“Nothing.” Kuroro feigned thought. Then, in a sweeping motion, he let his gaze fall to Kurapika’s chain-wrung hand. “But you have those, don’t you?”

“I’m not interested in hunting you down.”

“That’s fine,” Kuroro hummed, his mind whirring. There was one more option, a dangerous one. An ache curled in one lung, rendering it collapsed for a long second. Kuroro didn’t wince, even when his breath came out gusted against Kurapika’s fringe. _But what’s dangerous to a man who’s going to die one way or the other?_ “I’m not talking about offense chains.”

Kurapika frowned. “What?”

“You used another on me before,” Kuroro reached to point a finger center Kurapika’s sternum, not touching him, “the heart one.”

Kurapika’s fist clenched in response, and for a moment, hesitance painted over his features. “My Judgement Chain?”

Kuroro’s smile was all but a voiceless purr, finger tapping the side of his own nose.

 _My greatest risk, indeed._ His stupidest, most unplanned risk. Kuroro couldn’t think of another way to get Kurapika to trust him than on the kid’s own terms. Illumi and that ridiculous book had made it clear, in the most painful sense, that Kuroro had no out but this one. _And if I’m set to die, it won’t be for breaking a promise._

Whatever it was Kurapika had to do on the Whale, Kuroro was certain he was strong enough to face the fray—and if a chain to the chest meant he got to kill Hisoka, win Kurapika, and _survive_ this godforsaken odyssey, Kuroro was willing to have his every rib shackled.

Kurapika cradled his own fist, jaw pulsing as he stared off to the side. It took a long breath for his gaze to find Kuroro’s again. “You don’t even know what I want yet.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Kurapika bit his cheek, scowling a look that flew past Kuroro at nothing. “I want—a relic. Something the Fourth Prince has.”

Kuroro’s brows shot into tied gauze. “Prince?”

“Kakin royalty, Tserriednich Hui Guo Rou.” Kurapika clarified, unnecessary as it was. Before Kuroro could begin hazarding guesses, Kurapika’s voice sharpened. “I’m not stealing anything.”

Surprise dipped to lid-eyed incredulity. “Did you plan on asking for it nicely? I assure you, you won’t be getting very far with decorum and chocolate eclairs.”

“Piss off,” Kurapika snapped, arms dropping to his sides. “I won’t be _stealing_ anything. It isn’t theft if it never fucking belonged to him in the first place.”

Kuroro didn’t have to ask who it belonged to.

There was no need for naming when Kurapika’s body turned itself into a weapon, all full-lipped snarl and wrung wrists. Of course, _of course._ Understanding bolted into place, and Kuroro couldn’t believe he’d discounted the possibility. Kakin royalty were notorious, morbid creatures with morbid tastes and morbid moralities. If Eyes had fallen into anyone’s possession, it was no surprise it was a son of theirs.

_How convenient._

“Well,” Kuroro’s baritone was rich, held deep. “Looks like we’ve reached common ground. I happen to have a vested interest in that man’s—ah, _collection._ I’ll know where to relieve myself of certain items when the opportunity presents itself.”

Not if, when.

Realization dawned and Kurapika’s tone went from hesitant to horrified. “You’re planning on robbing the Kakin.”

Kuroro smiled.

“Blind.”

Morality folded and faded behind those eyes. It was the first shred of Kurapika which mirrored who Kuroro knew him to be: always conflicted, always at odds with himself. _You’re something else, aren’t you?_ Kuroro’s gaze dipped, watching Kurapika’s throat rise and fall in a swallow. Soundless as it was, it told him all he needed to know.

“I have conditions.”

_Sinker._

Kuroro breathed out a chuckle, their proximity landing it on Kurapika’s lashes. “As any wonderfully intelligent man should.”

Kurapika ignored him. “You’re not to directly or indirectly harm my charge—or her mother.”

“Your charge?” Kuroro mused, going from entertained to unimpressed.

“Prince Woble and Queen Oito.” Kurapika pressed, his insistence bordering on premature regret. “And you’re not to touch their belongings, for that matter.”

Kuroro’s expression cupped winter, his eyes wide and calculating. Woble, if memory served, was the youngest of her siblings. There were no other babies. “Stealing candy isn’t my scene.”

“I’m not done.” Kurapika barked, biting his lips inward. Kuroro fought the urge to follow the movement. “You’re to involve me in strategy. Every step of the way. I want to know what you’re planning and when you’re planning on doing it.”

Kuroro pushed a tongue against the inside of his cheek, irritation bubbling. “That’ll involve telling you how I’m going to break the law. You rub shoulders with Zodiacs _,_ I don’t think that’s wise.”

“You didn’t say it,” the cadence was low, all purr and no pulse. “I didn’t hear it.”

_I won’t tell if you don’t._

Kuroro’s smile was a slow rising poison. Beautiful, ambitious and morally reprehensible; _you were made for me._ “Who would’ve known you’d be so understanding?”

“Don’t push your luck.” Kurapika clipped, eyes fluttering as he rolled them. Zipping his lips, Kuroro flicked away a nonexistent key. Looking off to the side, Kurapika sighed. “You’re intelligent, too.”

Kuroro’s brow hitched, quick to rise and slow to fall.

“Smart men have provisions,” Kurapika turned back to him, gesturing with an impatient palm.

 _Ah,_ Kuroro couldn’t believe it. Only one person alive would want to play fair game with a fucking criminal. _Aren’t you sweet on the heart?_ “I do.”

“Spit them out, then.” Kurapika bit, face made up of straight lines.

“You tell me everything you hear about Hisoka, unfiltered.” Kuroro towered over him, even closer. “Dig for information, if the need arises.”

Kurapika said nothing, body motionless.

“If you find him, do nothing.” Kuroro’s charm shaved itself down to a dry ice smile, tight-lipped, uncompromising “If he finds you—” this time, he did tuck Kurapika’s hair back, palm running the length of exposed neck, their faces a breath apart, “remind yourself whose side you belong to.”

//

The pain was pronounced this time. Kurapika had a hand center his chest, chain spearing Kuroro’s heart between his fingers. A shard of electricity shot through his body, from ankle to temple, and Kuroro couldn’t help the choked grunt he blew into Kurapika’s hair, fingers digging into the cleft of his collar.

Kurapika’s expression was void of everything, even focus.

Heaving a series of closely stitched breaths, Kuroro’s head hung, hand falling to rest on Kurapika’s wrist. It was done. He’d bound them for the length of this goose chase, allowed Kurapika to take the chain and oath first when he insisted. Kuroro’s breath shortened, and he blamed the _nen_ on his heart and the flower in his lungs.

“Looks like we’re foes of the same kidney.” Kuroro joked, winded with Kurapika’s palm against his chest. The poetry was humbled once he looked up.

It was a look that promised fire and brimstone.

“We are nothing alike,” Kurapika’s hand fell with his mercy, teeth apart in a silent, open-mouthed snarl. His canines were sharpened to sin, as dangerous as the rest of him. “Don’t you ever fucking insinuate that. There’s only one reason I’m dealing with you, and it isn’t camaraderie.”

Kuroro matched the glare with apathy, the cold type, the frozen antipathy he crutched on from birth. Any mild warmth they’d accomplished before was gone, blown to nothing. Reaching out, he tapped a finger against Kurapika’s chest—once, twice, thrice, to the beat of his pulse. “I’d say this begs to differ.”

_’til death do us part._

Kurapika’s grip nearly broke his wrist when it hit.

“I won’t bury my people’s gods in an unmarked grave,” the words wintered his voice, “or dub their tongue your language. That is why I haven’t torn you apart where you stand. That and _nothing_ else.”

“Carve my lungs out, then,” there was no charity in Kuroro’s voice, “eat them, if you’ve got the gut to stomach it.”

Kurapika’s hand shot to his throat. Metal pressed stains into skin, and Kuroro found himself slammed up against the nearest wall. The violent irony of his own statement didn’t settle until Kurapika brought their faces into alignment, color bleeding into his eyes past the rim of black.

“Hear me when I say this, Lucifer,” he tilted his head, hissing it into Kuroro’s face, “I will _never_ forgive what you’ve done—and a time will come, I swear on my dead mother’s mercy, where you will regret ever wronging me.”

Kuroro’s lungs seared, white-hot and celestial.

_What a tight chokehold._

“Heard and heeded.”

When Kurapika left the room, a back-run faltering hurricane, Kuroro caught the dip in his balance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **headline:** _displays the tremendous role of the mind in shaping our destiny; addresses mentality, the power of concentration & the ability to exert self-control_
> 
> wow this was outrageously long i’m sorry. believe me it was as much a bitch to write as it was to read. 
> 
> do let me know what you guys thought of it, though! your feedback's always crazy helpful, esp. with chunky writing like this 🔥


	3. act iii. sunline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another colossal chapter with virtually no proofreading 'cause my writing bores me 
> 
> i feel like that should be a warning

Kuroro’s head was underwater.

Body rippling, it erupted with the panic of a man unconscious, airways fragmenting in his throat. The folds of reality and dream came together, keeping his lungs full of something that wasn’t breath. It took a lick of pain—stitched sternum, crisscross tightening—for consciousness to find him. _Bedsheets, pillows, feet against steel_ , Kuroro’s eyes flared open. His room was small, brimming with stale air he couldn’t bring into his chest.

Breathing was a lost battle, and as Kuroro’s teeth ground into themselves, his thoughts splintered.

Again and again, pried apart by pain, trying desperately to lock into place. Coherence wouldn’t settle, instinct forcing him to tear into his body, nails bloodying the valley of his sternum. Shooting up, Kuroro sat against the side of the bed. The hand that wasn’t making an atlas of his skin, gripped the side of the mattress—ivory knuckled, just short of shattering.

No god knew torment like this.

His hand ran up to scrape at his throat, a vain attempt that earned him a single breath.

_I’m going to die._

Rebelling against the thought, his body seized, convulsing into a coughing fit. It was whip-crack lightning against his ribs, again and again, with every hack Kuroro pressed into his palms. Hurt spread from the crown of his stomach to line of his chest, and with every choke, black poured from nose and mouth.

It took a lifetime to settle.

Kuroro heaved, lungs reopen after he’d emptied them into wet hands. His mouth was lined with the residue of blood, bitter between his teeth and left to wax the ravine beneath his tongue. Gums pulsing, Kuroro watched the mess of gore and resin string from his mouth to web his fingers to pool onto the ground. Moonlight swam over the sight, dying it darker, pressing it with reflects of white; his breathing silenced itself.

A petal.

A handful, clotted in the cradle of his palm. Kuroro, unsteady, used a forearm to wipe his nose and mouth; his gaze never once abandoned the sight. Fingers caging the flowers, he rose, bare feet stained and silent against the cabin’s wooden paneling. Not unlike the room itself, its bathroom was spartan—bricked in white tile and cheap porcelain, a modest four-by-six that made it easy for Kuroro catch himself on the wall once dizziness hit.

He closed his eyes.

_Sweet, suffering Sekhmet._

Without reaching for the lights, Kuroro held his hands under the faucet and watched the blood drain. The petals fell bruised, stained, but not enough to dull the unmistakable glow of white-milk softness. Many had unraveled, missing ends; Kuroro frowned, tongue weighed by sap. Those that hadn’t fallen apart had an odd shape to them—a cornucopia fold that drew to a point, deep brown at its tightest.

Unnamable.

He crushed them.

Letting limp petals fall into the sink, Kuroro splashed water onto his face. Drops caught onto his collar, slid down the angled cliff of his jaw. On his way up, he saw it: the perfect white of a blossom, blooming where a tree had begun to stem from the seed.

Coat and key in hand, he left the water running.

//

The book had warned him, hadn’t it—about the flower thing.

The choking thing.

The pain thing.

_The dying thing._

Kuroro scoffed into his coffee, the inevitable wasn’t much of a warning. He was no stranger to pain, not by a long shot, but Kuroro’s body still throbbed with the memory of it. He’d never imagined lungs could feel so tight or stretch as wide. They weren’t built that way, and although he couldn’t see the byproduct of stretching them beyond their capacity, the ache told Kuroro all he needed to know: his lungs were torn up. Aching and tender and shredded.

That, for a change, wasn’t something he’d been given a fucking memo on.

Heaving up wildflowers was beautiful in theory, not practice. It suited suicidal poets who pockted stones and walked into rivers, not men who’d never seen a flower in bloom before the age of nineteen. Kuroro could picture verses mapping out all the different types of pain, the theatrical _fucking_ pentameter of death in a sentence or two. But the image of regurgitated petals, heavy with spit and sap, was a slap to any artists face.

Even the painting he’d seen was nothing like its reality.

Kuroro pressed the paper cup to his lips, kneading at the edge without drinking. Unlike the premise of _hanahaki,_ the flowers felt familiar. He couldn’t place a name or a time—mind too clouded with tension and trauma alike—but every fiber of his being pointed towards recognition. Intimate, is what it felt like, and the lead coiling in his gut meant it must’ve been.

_I’ve seen this tree before._

The question was where.

Sight locking on Shizuku and Bonolenov, Kuroro let the thought die. They walked towards him from across the hall, posture too relaxed to have dragged danger around that night; _good_. It meant they were safe—but safe meant lack of progress, and lack of progress meant Hisoka’s hell had yet to start. Tempering his irritation, Kuroro drummed his teeth along the cup.

Morning poured into the room from slit widows, too high to reach and too tight to let in much light. Kuroro didn’t mind much, happy that this tier stayed up and slept in, letting him have common rooms when he needed them. The place was more empty than it was alive, the residue of last night laying around in the form of tipped bottles and abandoned plastic lighters. No one save Kuroro and a few weary-looking strangers were up this early.

Throat raw, he took a gulp of coffee.

_Tastes like shit._

“Tell me you’ve found something useful,” he intoned, not waiting for them to drop into the seats across from him. There was a purse to Shizuku’s lips and a slight cant to Bonolenov’s shoulders, details distance hadn’t allowed for. Kuroro’s indifference wanted to fall into a frown; Phinks and Nobunaga were simple, transparent creatures who wore their emotions on their collars and at the corner of their lips. They hid nothing, whether they were aware of it or not.

Negotiation was a challenge for those two, understanding never was.

Bonolenov was a different breed.

Whether or not he was wrapped up, Bonolenov was too disciplined for loud displays of emotion. He and Pakunoda— _Paku_ —had a poise to them. The etiquette that was wasted on everyone else. Kuroro forbade the sad smile from rising; there was no room for mourning. The coil of Kurapika’s forearm came to mind instead, the veins that wound into it, the force that gripped chains at their base.

Kuroro didn’t understand how he could want a man who’d made martyrs of his people. But he did—even with the ghost of Kurapika’s palms coloring his throat, Kuroro wanted him.

Looking Bonolenov in the eye, then and there, made him loathe to admit it.

_What the fuck am I doing?_

“Nothing substantial, unfortunately.” Bonolenov spoke, and Kuroro couldn’t be more thankful for the distraction. His voice was clear past his bandages, only blinking every minute or so. “There is no sign of Hisoka on this tier, _danchou._ ”

Kuroro hummed, taking another drink and enjoying none of it. The coffee was lukewarm at best, the perfect temperature to fall right under unpleasant and just short of undrinkable. “Is that so?”

“Afraid so,” those eyes, a wide moss green, met his own. “There’s talk of the mafia though. Plenty of it.”

Kuroro’s brow hitched, stoic behind his drink. “You need no invitation.”

_Speak._

“Of course.” Bonolenov took it in stride, setting his hands over the table, glove-free. His bandages held tight around wrists, thicker than the gauze Kuroro used for himself, more threadbare. Bonolenov’d mentioned their worth before—lamb-wool sacrifice, memorial patch, symbolic—all the things Kuroro appreciated but didn’t understand.

There were no rituals or traditions back in Meteor City. The law there was the law of god or the godless. Churches were rundown havens for the homeless, statues half-headed and fissured, virgins x-ed in vulgar graffiti. Gydondond and Kurta—those tribes had culture, they had histories which stretched past sleeping in wheelless, rusting automobiles and biting into stone-baked bread.

Kuroro learned to appreciate what he would never have.

_That’s the point, isn’t it?_

“The information isn’t explicit.” Bonolenov continued. “There’s talk of _nen_ mastery in close relation to the Heil-Ly family. Manipulation.”

“And why should that concern us?”

“Value lies in the source, _danchou,”_ he chanced a side glance at Shizuku, looking back to Kuroro when he couldn’t find the recognition he’d been searching for. “We intercepted one Cha-R, she was the one who divulged the information.”

Kuroro nodded, setting down his cup. None of this was registering in its entirety, his mind still caught up and hung dry on trees and flowers and Scarlet Eyes. It wasn’t for a lack of trying—Kuroro wanted to focus, but the curling ache made it hard to think of anything other than his interaction with Kurapika. _It took a week to puke shit up,_ his eyes flew between Shizuku’s disinterest and Bonolenov’s expectancy, _why that long?_

“Cha-R,” Kuroro started, trying to reach some semblance of normalcy. “Where were they?”

“Scattered,” Shizuku muttered, chin in palm. “We had to track a bunch of them down, _danchou,_ it was very unpleasant.”

“I see.” Kuroro beat the devil’s tattoo into the table, nails drumming against the wood. “The Heil-Ly—those are nobles, yeah?”

“Yes and no,” Bonolenov locked his fingers. “They’re treated as such, what with having the patronage of princes. Truth is, they’re one of three elemental mafia syndicates currently in support of the Empire, alongside—”

"Cha-R and Xi-Yu,” Kuroro finished for him, nodding as understanding pieced. That must’ve been why they walked around with inflated entitlement. Those men were a crown short of royalty, which meant—“any details on which princes are supporting which families?”

 _Tserriednich has to be playing a hand, too._ Kuroro’s eyes slanted in thought.

“For the Succession War?” Bonolenov’s voice caught, confused. “That information was above the woman’s pay grade, I’m afraid.”

 _Not above the Kurta’s, I’ll bet._ Kuroro’s mind locked and resealed, processing the intel. “So be it. Thank you both, I value your efforts.”

“That’s hardly necessary.”

Kuroro granted him a smile, modest and genuine. “Much appreciated, regardless.”

“Hey, _danchou,”_ Shizuku chirped, remembering she was part of the conversation. “You’re not hot?”

Kuroro balked.

Neck craning forward a bit, he tried to sound impartial. “I beg your pardon?”

She pointed straight at the zipped leather coat, its fur necklacing his throat and weighing down on his shoulders. “That looks a degree hotter than hell, if you ask me.”

“Shizuku.” Bonolenov chastised.

“Yeah?” She blinked, glasses making her eyes look twice as large when she glanced between them. “Oh, did I say something wrong?”

It would’ve been funnier if the tenderness of his throat wasn’t as pronounced and the phantom burn of a flower didn’t still sting his pectoral. Kuroro refused to tell either of them what was happening, not for fear that they wouldn’t believe him, but for fear they _would._ Pakunoda’s grave was damp with her worry for him, and if she was an example to heed, these two might needlessly worry as well.

_I won’t have your coffins on my conscience._

There was no wisdom in advertising a weakness—to friend or foe. The fewer people knew, the better. It was enough of a foul omen that the first person to find out happened to be Illumi. With any luck, the bastard wouldn’t run his mouth. Not that Kuroro’s track record with luck was promising—or his track record with trust, for that matter.

“I’ve grown accustomed to it,” his baritone deviated from its regular drag, sharpening. “Don’t worry.”

“May I speak out of turn?” Bonolenov tested, crafting his question with uncertainty. Unlike the hesitance in his voice, there was none in his eyes when he met Kuroro’s stern perception.

“I’d be worried if you didn’t.”

“Are you feeling alright, _danchou_?”

A knot threatened his throat. “I don’t appreciate the connotations of that. Any reason you're asking?”

“Candidly, yes.” There was no hitch in Bonolenov’s voice or his stare. As respectful as the Gene’i Ryodan were of his position, they seldom airbrushed their thoughts in courtesy; they said what they needed to say, addressed topics even when Kuroro would’ve preferred silence. “Your behavior is off.”

Kuroro kept passive. “That’s not good.”

“No, it isn’t. Your fuse—” Bonolenov gestured with his hand in a vague wave “—has significantly shortened. I’m wondering whether there is cause for concern.”

“Concern yourself with nothing but Hisoka.” Kuroro clipped, monotone perched on the tail-end of finality. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Not even you?” It was Shizuku who asked, and through her pitched innocence, an edge tore through.

Kuroro kissed his teeth, sound drawn and hanging, eyes wide. 

“Never me.”

//

The bunker was as quiet as he’d left it, heady with the smell of saltwater, its floor wet with coagulating blood. Kuroro’d been forced to clean up once before, after offing a bunkmate minutes into meeting the man weeks prior, but the thought of wiping his own guts off the ground was heaps more disgusting. Enduring the nausea, he unzipped his coat and tossed it, dropping to sit on the bed.

Exhaustion took over.

He hadn’t done much of anything, no sleep, no food, no fights—nothing to warrant the way his body stayed wired and his muscles cramped. Kuroro tried to knead the stress out of one shoulder, arm resting itself across his chest. When his mind lingered to Kurapika, he let it; _what’re you doing to me?_ Even in his head, the question was a redundant one with an easy answer.

Kurapika was taking him to the slaughterhouse.

He had the capacity to destroy Kuroro’s focus without earning that right.

_This distraction’s going to get me killed._

One mistake was all it took.

One mistake would merit him a card to the neck or a punctured heart or a mouthful of dirt. Kuroro’s head dropped to his palms, dizziness hitting with arrows of pain; _good fucking god,_ his temples thrummed _._ It felt like days since he’d had a moment of peace, a chance to breathe without his body rioting. Licking his lips, Kuroro kept the bile where it belonged: in his gut, not on his fucking floor.

When the colors behind his eyes darkened into neutral black, Kuroro opened them with an exhale. His guard was too high to let him rest, and his body was too sore to go out and take action. There wasn’t a limbo in life more jaw-shatteringly frustrating.

Rolling his neck to stretch it out, Kuroro double-took the nightstand.

_A card._

For a moment, things stilled—his thinking, his breathing, his distraction—even the air around him. Attention shot back in spades, and as quick as the moment had come, Kuroro axed it wide open quicker. His hand shot out, sliding the paper up off wood and into his line of sight. It lacked the waxed face of a playing card, not shining with vinyl or an ornate back, the corners cut to a point. No suicide kings, no one-eyed jacks, no queen of hearts—just ivory white.

Between two fingers, he flipped it over.

_Le Parisien, Tier II—res. Table S7, 21:30. Tonight._

_Be there & don’t try me. _

_Crpkt._

The script looked less like a set of letters and more like a row of sigils, scratched on too fast and too cursive, the tell-tale forked strokes of a fountain pen spilling sideways. Kuroro stared without blinking, focus tapering. Despite being signed off—unnamed, but oh- _so_ recognizable—print still lay center the paper. In the smallest black serif, _RAT_ and nothing else sat under Kurapika’s writing.

Resting the card against his lips, Kuroro’s smile bloomed like ink in water.

//

Under the card, Kurapika’d left him a ticket pass to the second tier. _Always ready to play lawful,_ Kuroro smiled at a couple as he passed, the woman’s nose pinking when he did, _even when you’re breaking the law._ He couldn’t say he minded Kurapika’s logic, because aside from being hilarious, it saved him the hassle and body count. People would start asking questions if Kuroro's stunts continued, no matter how well he froze his trail. The more curious the person, the more dangerous.

_And we can’t have that._

Kuroro's eyes wandered. The second tier was nothing like the first and nothing like the third and worlds from the fifth, its palette far removed from sister decks. There were none of the lurid golds and reds and crystal Kakin was decked in. Instead, it was ruled by dark hardwood and winter shades of blue and tyrian purple. The lighting was held low, close to the fineries on women’s collars, blinking off exorbitant cufflinks. All a very romanticized image, Kuroro decided, of the high middle class.

The scent of rye and soured rum was replaced with lavender, faint enough to tease and present enough to linger. Kuroro enjoyed it—the click of his oxfords, the subtle elegance. Everything spoke of an educated wealth that came with years and years of having had it. Every person was dressed to the nines, spoke with a lilt of intellect and just the right amount of pretension. _You fit in here perfectly, dear._

Kuroro’s smile curled, small and excited.

Because Kurapika did. Even with the high-knot of his tribal wear and the beading of his vest, he would’ve fit in; he was the perfect image of smarts, effortless. The violence was just an added perk— _fate, if it exists, wouldn’t have wanted you for me otherwise._ Whether or not either of them liked it, this was decided for him. If fate did exist, and Kuroro’s ‘if’ fell heavier than most, then it had to be a neutral entity. Neither good nor bad, a tool which lent itself to every outcome. All Kuroro needed to do was play the game.

And he was very good at playing games.

_Solitaire happens to be a favorite of mine._

Kuroro stepped into the restaurant bar, his gait debonair. _Le Parisien_ was everything he expected it to be—a dark, saturnine place, heady with cologne and the grey rise of cigar smoke. Saxophone smoldered only a whisper above conversation, its tune deep and somber, a low soulful jazz. The circular room was encased in glass from wall to wall, overlooking the ocean. Cupped curtains fell from each pane in spills of ink blue, embellished in gold.

Being rich looked good.

Really good.

“May I be of assistance, sir?”

Kuroro’s attention went from the room to the maître d. The man had a face loosened with age, folding around his lips and the tight corners of his eyes. The moody ambiance painted him older, more solemn looking, with a blazer pressed to perfection. Kuroro afforded him a cordial smile. “Ah, yes. That would be wonderful.”

“Please,” the man gestured with his palm.

They were still stood at the entrance, and despite its breadth, Kuroro couldn’t find the face he was looking for. “There was a reservation for two, table S7, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Under?”

“I’m afraid this meeting was made in confidence,” Kuroro tossed him a toothier smile, “I wasn’t given a name or title. You’ll have to forgive my lack of preparation.”

 _Lies, lies,_ his mind sung with satisfaction. Small victories were everything when everything was going wrong. Blinking, the man hesitated. It wasn’t visible past the cant of his mouth and hover of his glove. There was no real need to be dishonest, Kuroro could’ve guessed either _Rat_ or _Kurapika._ Assuming neither was the answer, bashful ignorance or charming forgetfulness tended to do the trick.

But there was power in manipulation, and Kuroro was a little tired of feeling powerless.

“If I’d be so forward,” it took a moment for the man to compose his sentence, “may I at least ask your name?”

“Lusilfer,” Kuroro’s baritone was honey and practiced courtesy. When the man’s form faltered at the name, as some tended to, Kuroro continued with branded nonchalance. “Chrollo Lusilfer.”

The other cleared his throat.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I will check with your company,” placing a hand over his chest, near his collar, the man bowed his head. “I’ll only be a moment.”

“Please, go,” Kuroro tilted his palm, two fingers extended as he urged him. When the maître d took his leave, Kuroro chanced another look around. He didn’t have a doubt that Kurapika was here. If the hum of his _nen_ in the distance hadn’t given him away, his goody-goody attitude would’ve.

Because Kuroro was late.

And it was intentional.

 _Can’t tell me not to try you when you look so lovely tried,_ biting his lips inward, he refused to chuckle. As promised, the waiter arrived only moments after he’d left, and with a nod of the head, guided Kuroro a few steps inside.

“S is sectioned off and platformed,” he explained, pointing to an elevated, crescent mezzanine. “Will you need assistance finding your table?”

“Oh, no,” Kuroro replied with the same monotonous cadence. “Thank you for your help, this was more than enough.”

With that, he walked into the smokey haze of music and tobacco. The fer forgé staircase spiraled to the mezzanine, iron handrail cool under his touch. Kuroro took his time walking up, eyes scanning the area in smooth takes. Amid all the fine dining and chortling laughter, finding the loner in black was easy.

Long legs were bare and crossed under the table, drawn from high-riding dress shorts to pool into a pair of chukka. Kurapika was glancing upward, jaded as he humored two men hovering over him, the platinum wig he’d worn in Yorkshin brought up past his neck to strand over one shoulder. His exposed back was lined with one or two stray locks, blouse billowing, bishop sleeves tight around his forearms.

Kuroro’s once emptied chest felt fuller.

 _You might be disguised,_ Kuroro made quick work of his steps, taking in the cocky glint of smiles and expensive wrist watches as he did, _but hardly inconspicuous, darling._ Eyes not leaving the affluent profile of one man, Kuroro drew up to the table with his own poise.

He dropped a hand to the man’s shoulder.

“Ah, I’m sorry gentlemen,” he tossed them an urbane smile, ignoring how Kurapika brooded and turned to drown the mint in his mojito with a cocktail stick. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”

There was a stuttering silence that followed, where the pair tried piecing together who he was. They looked younger than Kuroro himself, maybe a year or two older than Kurapika. The spoiled bunch, he ventured—who committed white-collar crime and seduced older women. They lacked the experience that made men suave and the naiveté that made boys sweet.

“I don’t think that’s necessary.” One of them, the farther from him, commented. His eyes drew over to his friend, “We wouldn’t want to disrupt your night. Right?”

“Right.”

Kuroro smiled, dangerous. “Much appreciated, do have a good one.”

“Likewise.”

As soon as they took their leave, Kuroro slid into the seat across from Kurapika. He was greeted with an immediate scoff. “You like making a scene, don’t you?”

Kuroro placed a brooch—which he’d expertly slipped off the young man’s collar—onto the table, fingers flicking it in Kurapika’s direction. It spun, once, twice, before coming to a slow stop. “It’s fun.”

Kurapika’s eyes didn’t leave his. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Believe it,” he intoned, keeping his charm in place despite the ice in Kurapika’s voice. The piece looked expensive, too, plated a weighty rose gold with indents cupping ruby. “Looks like this costs a small fortune, and I hear it’s only common courtesy to bring something when you’re invited over for dinner. Unfortunately, my shitty tier doesn’t have boutique gift shops.”

Kurapika’s deadpan was tangible. “How thoughtful.”

“Handsome company,” Kuroro cocked his head, pairing his smile with lid eyes. “Handsome gifts.”

Kurapika shook his head with an annoyed breath, looking off to the side. He hadn’t touched his drink past stirring it, liquor teetering close to the rim. He must not have been there for very long, Kuroro guessed, eyeing the long waterfall of hair and the even longer drop of Kurapika’s neck. _Androgyny wears you well_. “You’re late.”

“I am.”

“I’m not taking that thing.”

“I know.”

Sighing, Kurapika turned back to him. “Then why steal it in the first place?”

“Because I can,” Kuroro was toneless, “Because it’s easy.”

When Kurapika stared back down at his drink, chin cradled like he was trying to structure a dying conversation, Kuroro took the lead. “Does that happen often? People coming on to you.”

Kurapika’s eyes flicked up to him, calculating, head still rested on curled fingers. “Men think they’re entitled to things they want,” he gave Kuroro a sharp once-over riddled in judgement. “Tends to happen more often than you’d imagine.”

Kuroro played into it. “Men like pretty things.”

“And that justifies what, exactly?” Kurapika’s gaze was unreadable, a deep artificial black that fell deeper in the light. The light cast his face in sharper slants, a clay pressed beauty that pursed lips. “Everyone likes pretty things.”

“Vice of greed,” Kuroro mused, leaning forward on his elbows, a casual move closer which had him linking his fingers. “Beautiful things tend to get taxed for it.”

“Good goddess, shut the _fuck_ up,” Kurapika rolled his eyes and fell back, unimpressed. “You like the sound of your own voice almost as much as you like theatrics, don’t you?”

A ringed palm was up before Kuroro could manage a word in edgewise. “Rhetorical.”

Kuroro’s jaw locked, annoyance baying beneath his smile.

“So you can be quiet after all.” Kurapika spoke, hand rolling the bulk of his hair, fingers drawing down to the edges. Both the under-eye wing—a pointed, deep green liner—and low fringe made his scowl stronger. “You’re here because we couldn’t talk properly last time.”

“Because you ran out.” Kuroro’s voice was low, but still managed to cut the tension wide open.

Kurapika gave him a wry look. “Because I ran out.”

The second drew longer, Kuroro not looking away and Kurapika’s bitterness unyielding. The more he stared, the more his chest wound itself tighter, burned a little hotter. If Kuroro thought about it for long enough, he could visualize virgin buds flowering, breaking vein and skin. Like the painting, like the book, like Illumi’s morbid dressed descriptions. The act of being around Kurapika—existing around him—brought back that morning, the whip-like rivet digging into his chest, the lashes of pain.

_He ran out on me._

And had every reason to.

“Glad we’re on the same page, I suppose,” Kuroro spoke first. He reached to pour himself a glass of water, the clotting in his throat enough to warrant it. “Before we start, I do have a question.”

“As much as I’d love it if you were quiet,” Kurapika huffed, petulant, “you’ve got stakes in this arrangement as well. If I’m gambling your life, I’ll give you the right to pry within reason.”

“ _Rat_.” Kuroro cut to it, eyes flashing to Kurapika’s as he poured the water. “It was on your card.”

The corner of Kurapika’s mouth rose, caught between amusement and resignation. “And what do you make of it?”

“Authority.”

“On the money.”

“What happened to Pariston Hill?” Kuroro set down the bottle, pressing the glass to his lips. “He was the former Zodiac operating under that alias, if I’m not wrong.”

“You’re not,” Kurapika took the first sip out of his drink, running a tongue across his teeth. He fell back, one elbow braced against the back of his chair, the other hand hanging off its wrist. “He resigned. His reasons are his own.”

“And you took his place.”

“And I took his place,” Kurapika agreed, staring at Kuroro with lid-eyed boredom. “My reasons are also my own. In any case, I assume that isn’t why you showed up—curiosity’s persuasive, but it isn’t that persuasive.”

“We had a deal,” Kuroro set down his water after a swallow, hissing breath through his teeth. Over Kurapika’s shoulder, he eyed an approaching waiter. “Scheduling a briefing isn’t out of the ordinary.”

When their eyes met again, Kuroro’s brow rose in warning. Kurapika took it in stride, profile turning sideways in time for the waiter to arrive, two leather-bound menus in hand. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

It was difficult to look away from Kurapika—those eyes didn’t grant the waiter a shred of pleasantness. They splintered courtesies with stoicism and sung with passive hostility. It didn’t take long for the man to falter, placing both menus down without the grace of his initial greeting.

After fumbling a promise to return, he hurried off.

Kuroro whistled—long, low and lifeless. “You’re absolute carnage.”

Kurapika redirected his glare to fit him instead. “Repeat that for me?”

“Poor kid.” Kuroro’s face was free of all emotion save lingering traces of awe. “Charm from you is like blood from a stone: impossible.”

“I’m not here to play house with you,” Kurapika’s voice whipped, patience cracking. “If you’re looking for someone docile to keep your dick wet, I suggest you try elsewhere.”

“Sharp tongue,” Kuroro hummed, taken with the vulgarity. “I warn you not to cut yourself on it.”

With swinging momentum, Kurapika reached for the brooch and flung it straight at his face. Kuroro caught it, a half-blink before it could cleave his bridge clean open.

“And I’ll warn you to watch out for less abstract threats,” Kurapika’s accent, once hidden under civility, surfaced in his anger. “Those bleed.”

Their eyes met over the rim of rose gold.

“Consider yourself heard.”

Lust took to Kuroro’s spine like fire to spilled gasoline, braiding into the cavities and spiraling from tailbone to nape. His pulse thundered, lungs stinging in time with each timed hit of blood. The scrapes and cuts that undoubtably decorated the inside of his chest hadn’t been given enough time to heal, and desire only made the heat simmer hotter, crueler.

“And heeded, I’d hope.” Kurapika’s scowl took its time to fade. When it did, he sighed, the gears in his head turning. His eyes were as hard to read as ever, not that it mattered when he slid them shut. “Whatever, let’s just get on with it.”

Leaning forward, Kuroro dropped the brooch into Kurapika’s drink, metal plopping with a click against ice.

He stood and smiled.

“I’ll be a minute.”

//

Blood looked black in this light, too, spilling across the porcelain bowl in viscid clots. Kuroro choked on it, heaved until the slide of oil and resin strung from his teeth. It was a tightrope between ache and numbness, his chest full of both at once, sight spinning as his oxygen ran low.

If this was what love tasted like, love tasted like shit.

With a final chuck of petal and tar, Kuroro braced a hand on the stall wall and pushed himself to a stand. He ran a tongue across his teeth, his gums, his lips, before spitting the excess into the toilet. He didn’t watch it go down this time.

No red on his collar.

//

Kurapika liked his wine dry and his fish smoked. Kurapika also took the liberty of ordering for him in his absence. Kuroro couldn’t have cared less, mood rotting by the minute. Any excitement or will to argue drained out of him when he sat back down, shoulders weighed by Kurapika’s hesitant stare.

“That took you longer than a minute.”

If Kuroro didn’t know better, he might’ve assumed there was more to the statement.

He nodded, swallowing. Speaking was out of the question, at least until the rawness in his throat settled. The last thing he needed was Kurapika asking questions that didn’t belong to the conversation. Kuroro grabbed the wine that’d already been poured for him, hooking the stem between his fingers. Chardonnay burned sweeter on its way down, a sting far more pleasant than _hanahaki_ ’s _._

“I—” Kurapika started, stopping himself half a syllable in. “I’m going to assume whatever you just did was legal.”

Kuroro scoffed into his glass, surface rippling.

 _It shouldn’t be._ None of this should be. Kuroro may not have minded Kurapika as the object of his alleged affection but he minded every other part of this. The longer it went on for, the more grating it became. Kuroro wasn’t someone who played fair, and while he was more than willing to go toe to toe with his own sins, this was different. This wasn’t someone seeking retribution, this was the world playing puppet-show with his godforsaken sanity.

They lapsed into silence. Kurapika took the hint and mirrored it, allowing both of them enough quiet to calm their nerves. Kuroro imagined he was still vibrating with subdued rage; Kurapika was volatile, temper short and always ready to blow. It came as no surprise that Kuroro nearly lost a nose to it.

He dropped his focus to the untouched mojito sitting by Kurapika’s wrist, brooch still submerged, dilated by liquor.

The sip Kurapika took earlier hadn’t made a dent in the drink, and with the same ease he used to abandon the rum, he started on wine instead. Kuroro gathered his bearings in silence, watching a far off look take over Kurapika’s expression. He was beautiful, even five seconds from surrender.

And for once, Kuroro was surprised he didn’t care.

 _I like pretty things,_ he stared, and if Kurapika noticed, he didn’t say anything, _but that isn’t why the bathroom’s painted in my guts._

No, his lust hadn’t come with the sight of legs or lips or angled collarbones.

It came with emotion.

Kurapika’s emotion.

 _Hanahaki_ wasn’t a manifestation of unrequited love, it was the documentation of tragedy as it played out. The more his attraction grew without reciprocity, the tree would too.

Kuroro was thankful he’d just emptied his chest, because he needed to breathe now more than ever.

He was twice as thankful when the waiter interrupted, setting their orders down with a boatload of nervous energy. Kuroro wasn’t sure whether it was intentional or knee-jerk, but Kurapika tossed the man a low _thank you_ and a tightlipped smile.

Kuroro swallowed.

“Bass,” Kurapika explained, cutting into the fish without appetite. “I heard it was good.”

Kuroro glanced down at his own plate, more negative space than food. Minimalism of the ultra-rich. It was grating how the universe granted wealth to those who valued it least. He made no move to lift his own cutlery. Appetite was hard to come by with teeth waxed in iron, and despite rinsing his mouth out, Kuroro could still taste the undertone of sap. Without biting into his food, Kurapika reinitiated their conversation.

“Hisoka?” He didn’t look up at Kuroro, but there was no reserve in his voice. It dropped with the same deliberate, calculated cliff-fall. He spoke like a cop.

Kuroro stared back, silent.

“Why Hisoka?” Kurapika pushed wilted spinach to the far corner of his plate before setting his fork down. He lifted his gaze, fingers locking over the meal, elbows resting on either side of it. “We’ve already sealed the agreement, it’s not like I can back out now.”

Testing his throat, Kuroro swallowed. A dull pulse still beat at the back of it, just enough to herald a warning but not enough to stop him from speaking completely. The action was, as intended, too faint for Kurapika to pick up on. “He’s being a nuisance.”

Kurapika frowned. “That’s nothing new.”

“An exceptional nuisance, then.”

“I don’t get it,” Kurapika hummed reaching for the wine, not commenting on the raw scrape of Kuroro’s syllables. The fire in their conversation burned down to ember, toneless, and Kuroro found himself appreciating the low and humble drawl that left Kurapika’s mouth. Anger, as divine as it was, had a time and place—and that wasn’t here. “Why won’t you humor him?”

“Humor him?” Kuroro raised a condescending brow. “You’ve met him.”

Kurapika held his silence for a moment, long enough to study Kuroro’s expression and treat himself to a sip. He set the glass down without looking at it. “If it’s a fight he wants, just give it to him, I thought you were confident in your—”

“I am.” _Sharp_. “And I did.”

Kurapika’s lips pursed, cupid’s bow rounding. “Then—”

“I won.”

Kuroro cocked his head, in no mood for charity or charm or romance. _Not on this topic._ Kurapika was more receptive to the honesty, it seemed, because the flat of his eyes flickered for a shooting-star second. “That means he’s dead.”

“Was.” Kuroro’s caustic smile was targeted at his own failure rather than Kurapika’s prying. “ _Was_ dead. Temporarily.”

Brittle Kurta features folded into disgust—quick twitch of a slender nose, downset brows appearing from under his fringe. “That’s not possible.”

Kuroro said nothing.

“That’s not possible,” Kurapika repeated, trying to make sense of the claim. There was a brief resurfacing of anger when he spoke. “You’re telling me he’s immortal or something? Did you have us chain ourselves to our own death warrants—”

“Relax,” Kuroro clipped. “He managed it once, I doubt he’ll try it twice.”

Kurapika studied him, from healing knuckles to broad shoulders, trying to find a dent in his confidence. “How do you know that?”

“Call it instinct,” Kuroro monotoned, running a finger down the curves of the wine bottle, drawing into the salted dampness. In reality, there was no way of knowing whether Hisoka would put measures in place this time around, ones more inventive. _Fool me once, though._ No matter how inventive, Kuroro would make certain he stayed dead this time around.

Even if Hisoka’s head had to be pried off his body and torched.

“And now he’s looking for another fight?” Kurapika shook his head, confusion overriding his curiosity. “That doesn’t make much sense, either.”

“Because he isn’t.” Kuroro’s hand dropped, resting by the foot of the chardonnay. “A fight’s not what he’s after.”

“Then why—” Kurapika stopped. Maybe it was the look on Kuroro’s face, the harshness of stoic anger, or his own quick smarts, but Kurapika’s expression dipped into realization before he could end the question. “He’s after blood.”

Kuroro’s _nen_ wound silently, pulsing and undulating and just subtle enough to brush Kurapika’s space and no one else’s. He made sure it provided enough of an answer.

Uncomfortable, Kurapika uncrossed his legs before recrossing them, opposite knee perching, his ankle grazing Kuroro’s own on the way higher. Mistake or not, the violent thunder of it echoed into him, splintering the branches of new seed in his lungs. Kuroro couldn’t help it: his eyes slid closed, the citadel of control he prided himself on crumbling under the weight of a negligible touch. It was hard to believe that the very thing that caused him this much grief, was meant to be curative.

Kuroro didn’t want to think about it.

He opened his eyes.

Kurapika, oblivious to his pain, looked lost in thought. He tucked a platinum strand up over his ear, hair curtaining loose around his temple. The red stone of his earring swung, shades changing with the movement, far too vibrant for an atmosphere with tobacco and mastic. Saxophone wailed to the slow weave of cigar smoke. Kurapika’s skin was copper, even in this light; he looked good, somber and moody, sun-borne freckles charting the high flanks of his cheekbones.

He always looked good, it seemed. 

_Maybe this is a manipulator’s doing after all,_ Kuroro watched him up until he couldn’t, Kurapika’s attention settling back onto him.

“There’s something else to it, isn’t there?” he asked, aloof. “You wouldn’t need me if that was it. Hisoka’s doing more than just hunting you down.”

Kuroro took a drink of chardonnay, too drawn and too bitter, his eyes never leaving Kurapika’s. It was hard to see realization simmer behind lenses, but Kuroro saw it in everything else: the growing complacency, the twirl of the lips, the tilt of the head. Before the moment was over, and before the foot of his glass hit table, Kurapika was all malice and no mercy.

“He’s hunting you _all_ down.”

Kuroro didn’t catch a single, ruinous glimmer of pity in that expression.

“Like the swine you are.” Kurapika smiled with teeth for the first time that night, his face a blithe painting of cruelty. For a man who’d lost everything, he had no empathy in him. Kuroro’s rage pooled into his temples, vein drawing close to skin; the longer they interacted, the more of himself he saw in Kurapika.

The more he realized what originally felt like a universal joke, was a calculated hand.

_Fate doesn’t fuck around._

“Ah, that’s rich,” Kurapika fell back with a happy breath, folding his arms over his chest. “That’s why you rested on vague before, huh? Afraid I wouldn’t help save your ragtag team of forty thieves from slaughter—”

“If you want to keep your tongue,” Kuroro’s eyes were arctic and his lungs inferno, “keep it safe behind your teeth.”

“Karma’s a bitch, Lucifer,” Kurapika didn’t laugh, even when his voice hung on the promise of one. He spoke low, syllables curling in amusement, a sultry type of sadistic. “That’s why, when she comes back to fuck you over, you’ve got to make sure she’s pretty.”

“That’d make more sense coming from a man with better karma than you, my dear,” Kuroro said, unamused. “I wouldn’t say you’ve been lucky.”

Kurapika appraised him, a quick dangerous once-over that had Kuroro’s spine steeling. “Biding my time. No blood without bane _._ ”

Kuroro’s eyes lid. “Kill your hubris before it kills you first.”

“You think I can’t take you on?” Kurapika asked, disbelief written across his face and in the rise of his shoulders. He leaned himself forward, not close enough for his breath to hit Kuroro but close enough for Kuroro to make out the the hair-fine scar that caught in his brow and the press of a freckle right beneath his eye.

Impulse told him to lean in, instinct warned him not to.

“Bad men die last,” Kurapika breathed, and the threat felt intimate. “But they die nonetheless.”

Kuroro’s eyes fell to wine-burned lips and stayed there. “And you’ll be the one to kill me.”

“Yeah,” Kurapika’s voice was barely voice at all. “I’ll be the one to kill you.”

_I know._

Softness brushed against the walls of his lungs, virgin petals folding like silk. And then Kuroro laughed, gentle and under-breath, his head hanging. _Gods,_ was that all it took—a hiss of challenge and Kuroro was willing to ink his own eulogy, sign it off a thank you. All it took was the heat of an exhale and the beauty of threat, and Kuroro sunk a little lower, liked him a little more. He was playing a dangerous game, and Kurapika made it so very easy to enjoy the loss.

When his fondness settled in full, Kuroro gave him the sweetest smile. “I’ll hold you to it.”

Not that he needed to. By blossom or by chain, Kurapika would kill him.

Whichever happened first.

//

Kuroro paid for a meal neither of them ate. He ignored Kurapika’s scowl— _‘paying in blood money?’_ —and chose to toss him a flippant _‘bank still takes it, don’t they?_ ’ After Kurapika’s grab for the bill holder had gone in vain, he said nothing when Kuroro slotted his credit card into the leather. Cheap charm wouldn’t have him falling, but Kuroro already knew that.

His reasons for footing the bill were more selfish than they were romantic, anyway, _you’re mythic when you’re mad._ Smiling, he slid the holder to the corner of their table once he was sure Kurapika wouldn’t touch it. “This was wonderful, you’re incredible company.”

“Eat shit.”

“I’d rather not.”

Kurapika deadpanned. He didn’t hold it for long, hand reaching to slide the mojito in Kuroro’s direction. Their table had been cleared of everything but the glass, and for good reason—the brooch still sat inside, an insect fossilized in amber. The plating had reacted, rose gold more vibrant than before, and any subtle traces of oxidization were shaved off by the acidity. If anything, Kuroro’d helped raise its value by being a bitch.

With a tilt of the chin, Kurapika gestured towards the drink. “Return it.”

And without hesitation, Kuroro flatlined. “Absolutely not.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.”

“Wasn’t an option, either.”

Kurapika’s jaw rolled. He waited until the waiter picked up the check before speaking. “You’re horrible.”

“By mean of comparison, that sounds like a compliment,” Kuroro leaned forward, resting his chin on the back of his hand. “Given the colorful things you’ve called me.”

“It’s not.”

“Thank you anyway.” With every smile he gave Kurapika, Kuroro watched frustration build. It was a strange look on him. Kurapika’s anger was profound, all sharp angles and heaving aura, and his apathy was the perfect opposite. This—was different. Younger, somehow, and Kuroro likened it to paper in water: gradual weakening, constant conflict. “This was an informative night.”

“We’re not done,” Kurapika didn’t rush, though there was suddenness in the way he spoke. “There’s still—” he cast a sharp look around. The pause wasn’t hesitant so much as it was cautious.

“Kakin,” Kuroro said for him, and earned himself an immediate scowl. They were flanked by politicians and courtesans, people with tongues looser than their bank accounts and a propensity for agenda management. Any wrong word here, any misplaced statement there, could have their arrangement hanging in the balance. Could have _them_ hanging in the balance.

By their necks.

_Exciting, isn’t it?_

“Watch yourself.” Kurapika bit after he’d made sure no one was listening in on their conversation. The night had gotten older, and with it, people around them had gotten drunker. The smokiness contributed hands and hands of whiskey, ice spheres rolling in liquor, mood swaying in bouts of imbalance. Kuroro couldn’t help but compare it to the fifth tier; men rich and poor worshiped the bottom of their glasses more piously than they did their gods.

“That’s on you,” he downed what remained of his wine, kissing his teeth after. Dry wine was an interesting palate cleanser for guts and gore. “You’re the one who brought us here. Was your plan to get me shot for treason? What a garbage way to die.”

“If I lack charm, you’ve never heard of _tact,”_ Kurapika edged over on both palms, hissing his whisper.

“And if you’re this wound up,” Kuroro filled his glass and slid it parallel to the mojito, pokerface in play. “You need another drink.”

“I don’t need a drink,” Kurapika snapped, “I need a plan. That’s the only reason you’re here.”

“Charmer.”

“Fuck you.”

 _This is going nowhere,_ not on any front. He was no closer to finding Hisoka, no closer to planning the heist, and nowhere near having Kurapika’s affection. Biting the bullet, Kuroro stared at Kurapika and lifted the brooch out of the mojito. There was a flicker of surprise that took over, and Kurapika looked the most genuine Kuroro had ever seen him.

It lasted longer than he expected, and it took everything to stand and turn away.

_I can’t believe I’m doing this._

Finding the guy was easy, all Kuroro had to do was follow the scent of overpriced cologne and liquor possessed laughter. If there was one thing he hated more than men who couldn’t control their alcohol, it was men who were noisy because of it. He tempered his irritation into courtesy, drawing up to a table of five with a debonair step.

“Fine evening, isn’t it?”

The conversation quieted. Kuroro scanned their faces, and before he could land on the one he was looking for, a narrow set of eyes caught his attention. The man was familiar, all square jaw and wide-set nose, his perpetual scowl fixating on Kuroro. Kuroro's charm faltered for the second it took to catalog the details. It was back in place without a hitch. 

Tilting his neck, he locked gazes with the young man he'd robbed. 

“You have my apologies for interrupting,” Kuroro smiled down at him, the whiskey he cradled provided enough damning evidence if flushed skin hadn't. “I believe you dropped something back there.”

Lifting the brooch, he watched those brown eyes widen, the man’s hand reaching to feel for his lapel. By the time realization dawned in full, Kuroro placed the pin down onto the table. He ignored the calculating set of eyes that hung off him, two seats right. “I thought I’d return it, since my company and I happen to be leaving. Do take better care of your things, that looks lovely.”

The guy swallowed, too drunk to do much else. When Kuroro made to walk away, he almost didn’t catch the comment. 

Almost. 

“I’d say you should, too.”

He paused midstep.

With a back to the men, Kuroro's gaze found Kurapika's delicate, fragile indifference—far off and fading. 

It didn’t take a genius to understand what was being referred to. _Who_ was being referred to. This kid had to be so very drunk or so very stupid or so very young, or an unfortunate combination of the three. Supplanting his charm, Kuroro’s _nen_ unbraided. He allowed it to permeate, waft close enough to choke the suits. Although he exercised enough control to keep it at bay, tables around them fell quiet. 

If people didn’t know _nen_ existed, by the pallor of their faces, they felt it.

Kuroro perched a caustic smile over his shoulder, eyes half-mast obsidian. When he spoke, it was nothing short of stone-cold predation.

"There's nothing I do better." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **sunline** : _indicates capability, wealth, talent and popularity; alternatively named the success line._
> 
> did i semi-rip off le parisien's name from the titanic? damn straight i did lmao togashi does it too so it's cool. also lowkey had to split this chapter since it would've otherwise been like... 16k. this was supposed to be a short fic i _swear—_
> 
> anyways, do let me know what you guys thought! it's super motivating and hella helpful & let me tell you, this clown needs all the help she can get


	4. act iv. girdle of venus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> late, late, i know! i got like 2 cortisone shots to the hand (fml) and doc's orders were no keyboard or gym for a while. but now i'm back & whack & ready to wreck my left hand just like i did my right one
> 
> tunglr is [@itsillumi](https://itsillumi.tumblr.com/) if you're into my bullshit

Kuroro watched for a particular shade of terror before walking away, a white-cheeked, open-gape type terror that brought him no little amount of satisfaction. If it were up to him, rather than the clutch of decorum, he would've pushed it further—had pink lips bleach themselves tangerine, force this young, stupid fuck to hightail straight across the hall. Reason forced him not to. 

And only a true veteran of stupidity would miss the warning his aura carried. _I'll sink my teeth into you, try me._

Malice melting into condescension, Kuroro smiled. "If you'll excuse me."

The smile slid off as he turned. None of the men tried seeing him off with words or kind gestures, despite the eyes they left anchored between his shoulders. Kuroro could afford to care more, but his attention drew to Kurapika instead. Half-standing, Kurapika's hands were braced onto the table in a perch that was prepared to act if— _when_ by the looks of it—necessary. Kuroro didn't roll his eyes; _give me some credit._

He wouldn't kill a man in a place this public, even if that sounded like a phenomenal close to the night. 

_He'd look good in red._

Most people do. 

And the people who challenged his authority, loyalty— _capability_ —wore it best. 

Patience tried, Kuroro's back tightened. It was one thing to test his patience, but there was nothing more grating than men whose voices replaced their guns. As fate would dictate, they also happened to be the men who miscalculated the most. _I'll_ _snap your jaw,_ he tossed a pleasant smile to a passing waiter. _And I'll have you thank me for it._

Because Kuroro was good at keeping things and even better at ending them. Whichever it happened to be, the final word left no mouth but his. Until every joint in his body rusted with blood and his skin bit dust, that wouldn't change. Meteor City had failed at many things, save teaching him how to keep—how to hoard and protect, blood on blood. His disobedience was a pulled back trigger set to smoke at the thought of losing something he possessed. 

Kuroro protected what was his. 

Without exception. 

Without fail. 

_Always_.

“You can’t do that,” Kurapika breathed when he was within earshot. Exhaustion curved his mouth and softened his voice, a humbler quality to his features. He'd been ready to act, had Kuroro stepped out of line, but his body up close was as lax as his words. Even then, there was the lilt of sanctimony on his tongue because this was Kurapika, and in knowing him for hours, Kuroro learned to expect it. “If this is going to work, you can’t go around threatening our cover.” 

_Our._

“No one knows how I look,” Kuroro dismissed him. “No one knows who I am.”

"Not yet," Kurapika paused, and whether he did it for effect or in an effort to calm the tension, Kuroro wasn't all that sure. The words had the same quiet and calculated drawl, slower than the tempo of their earlier interactions. Kuroro wondered which of the two was more dangerous—an in-control Kurapika or a charged one. "And I'd say that's worse. 

“You worry too much.”

“You don’t worry nearly enough.”

“Just the right amount, then,” Kuroro bargained without humor, glancing down to their table. It was cleared of everything, even the mojito. All that sat there was the returned billholder, leather polished and stitched to a mark at the edges. Relief washed over him. There was nothing Kuroro wanted more, at least at that moment, than to leave _Le Parisien._ The night had worn itself, and his patience, gossamer thin. 

Kurapika sighed, and Kuroro made a point to ignore him. He picked up the billholder, "Grab your things."

"Why?"

Kuroro met his frown with a stoic stare. "Because we're getting out of here. I took you for perceptive."

Kurapika scoffed, incredulous. _My, so easy to offend._ "Throw yourself off Kukuroo, you're a public disservice." 

"If we manage to keep our limbs and get off this soon to be submarine alive," Kuroro intoned as he thumbed the holder open, "I'll give it an honest sho—" 

Mouth clicking shut, he stared down stone-faced.

And the frail smile of a queen stared back.

A vintage spades card, edges the perfect convex, her colors crisp, hardened acrylic. Every non-blink the royal gave him had Kuroro's ungovernable fury seething hotter, blood thickening. His charm, the cheap show of _compos mentis_ and forged sanity was thrown to hell, left to graffiti its fucking walls because—

— _he's here._

Kuroro’s head snapped, eyes manic as they took to the corners of the hall, each person a nexus he used to jump onto the next. _He’s here, he’s here, he’s he—_ there was no _nen_ signature present, no head of magenta, no paper-cut smile. Kuroro’s thoughts broke open and refitted, again and again, turning the sundry of possibilities over in his mind.

Focus garroted, chaos took root in his head and his heartbeat. 

Kurapika's hand flashed in his periphery, shifting to reach for the holder. With unforgiving speed and an unblinking stare, Kuroro slammed it shut. 

"Hands _off_." 

It was all deadened rage and a sharp hiss of breath. 

Kurapika's features descended into disbelief. He looked caught between shock and offense, face wrought with more emotion than Kuroro was used to seeing on him. Lip curling, his shoulders rose to cage his neck and his hand hovered. Kuroro didn't want it to bother him, so it didn't. This didn't bother him. 

Because bother wasn't the word. 

Hurt was.

Like clockwork, there was a flood of something unwelcome in his lungs, a knot pulling tight around the arch of several ribs at once. _Hanahaki_ was an ancient horror, he knew, built on the innate and the intrinsic—and there was nothing more innate, more venerable than the human condition. _Fear, desire, pain_. Kuroro would’ve rather had his head severed and piked for all to see, than this. Because pain came in waves of the physical and—

Something else. 

Something crippling

Without sparing a second to think it through, Kuroro eased his expression into apathy and brushed his free hand along the back of Kurapika’s elbow.

“Move.”

//

Kuroro didn’t dream, hadn’t in years. On days where he caved to sleep, images flashed past his eyes in a tenuous mess of incoherence and exhaustion. They were never marked with stories, no memories or empty outlines to help him predict the future or rationalize the present. His mental state, he likened to a lake: crystal cold, rippling to the skip of one stone at a time. In that moment, with his palm framing the back of Kurapika's arm, it felt like a dream. 

The ones he suffered when he was younger, with muddled timelines and too many thoughts, all working in tandem, co-habiting the same moment as they brayed for attention. Loud and jarring, lacking the clarity he so desperately needed. Nothing made sense, not the card in his hold or the sear of his chest. 

Heartburn had been replaced by flame-licked turpentine, a pressed and untempered pain that tasted too much like gasoline. It made Kuroro want to crawl out of his own body. Maybe his mind too. There was a line between deliverance and salvation, and right then, he wondered whether it was kinder, _freer_ to fucking cave than keep at this. 

Kuroro used Kurapika's silence as an anchor to bring himself out of upheaval. 

They wove into the crowded corridor, moving against the tide until it released them into one of the more silent wings. Kuroro wasn’t sure where they were going, and given Kurapika’s lack of vocal contribution, he figured the man didn’t either.

There wasn’t much to be said, anyway.

Kurapika folded into himself, either out of offense or courtesy. He stared forward, eyes flat and unfeeling. Kuroro recognized it as the same look from weeks before, under the platonist shadows of the fifth tier. Driving a tongue into his cheek, Kuroro distracted himself with useless philosophies and the arrow slope of Kurapika's shoulders. 

No apology came. 

Neither did the desire to remove his touch. There was no need for his hand to sit so close to Kurapika's skin, to hover just short of his sleeve. But Kurapika made no move to shift, and with every brush against sheer silk, Kuroro's pain ebbed softer. Contact made it easier to ignore the blood clotting in his throat. Not by much, not too far, just enough to make space for the flashes of rage and strategy. 

_Hisoka's on this deck._

If only for the second it took to slide that playing card into place. _No one exists without leaving something behind,_ a trace, an overlooked detail, a damning piece of fault. No one was that good, no one was that—

Kuroro's spine crystalized, rippling.

The air dropped, a steep and sudden dive that had his bones locking, Kuroro's guard hurled itself into the sun. Without a beat of hesitance, he grabbed Kurapika by the jaw and forced him back into an adjacent hallway. _Nen_ made itself known in a corrupt andante, pulsing with bloodlust, dense with malice. There was no mark of gentleness when it fell against skin. 

No mark of familiarity. 

Kuroro ignored Kurapika's distressed cry in favor of condensing his aura into _zetsu,_ one palm gripping the man's jaw, the other inverted to press over his mouth. Kurapika's nose flared, his brows broken in with shock and his hands clawing for purchase at Kuroro's wrist. Nails dug into tendons, rage pooling into every scrape; the coil of Kuroro's shoulders forbade him from doing much else. 

It didn't stop Kurapika's body from vaulting—knees driving into thighs, elbow to chest, hips canting. Chains came up to wind around Kuroro's forearm, a make-shift tourniquet that had his fingers buzzing. Every shift was an attempt to force him back. 

Unsuccessfully. 

One look—a warning to _pay attention_ —had Kurapika’s hysteria settling. Kuroro could pinpoint the exact second he was calm enough to feel it, aura going from flaring volatility to spectral in seconds flat. The depressions Kuroro’s fingers drew into Kurapika's skin sat unmoving, and for a beat, neither of them breathed, bodies locked into each other, rigid.

When their faces turned, Kuroro’s disgust bayed.

Inches from their faces, another hovered—skin a bone-polished porcelain, an otherwise beautiful woman’s features chiseled into the angles of something kafkaesque. The line of its eyes was curved high, framed by bladed lashes too dense to be human and too long to be natural, brandy pupils lit with perpetual dilation. Breath weighed into the space between them, split the last of Kuroro’s comfort and settled into the unexpressive planes of his face.

And with a hiss, the thing parted.

It _parted._

Thick, darkened saliva ribboned from jaw to jaw, teeth serrated and bowed inward, decking the inside in a single row that curved back into the head. Kuroro’s gut wrung, tongue flattening to edge against every corner of his closed mouth, forcing down nausea. _What in hell’s fucking name_ —he stayed mythically still, Kurapika’s limbs hardening into his own.

For the span of that second, there was no sound but the creature's cyanide-scented heaving. 

_Warning._

Kurapika's earlier _nen_ flare had been enough to trigger the thing's hostility, but before Kuroro could set an offensive into motion, it drew back as slowly as it had approached. Its neck folded like the bellows of an accordion, steps sounding of hooves and heels, taking with it the forked tongue and dual set eyes. 

Kuroro didn't take his own off it until it turned away in full. It gave him enough time to tilt out of the corridor, catching sight of two individuals walking by its hind. The thief in him sung at the sight of gold-stitched robes, details reflective against ivory and red and a broad back strong with wealth. 

Beside the man, a woman looked back—straight at him. 

Worry was her religion, it seemed, because the stare she gave him was short and pitying, empty of explanation. Just as easily, she turned away and Kuroro was left with the perfect brush of pale hair instead. 

It took several moments for the click of steps to fade, and twice that long for Kuroro’s body to liquefy into movement. His mind had stalled, not trying to make sense of what they’d seen or what it meant or the tightness between that lady’s brows. He tipped his head back and swallowed, hands still resting over Kurapika’s mouth and jaw.

The muscles of his face were solid under Kuroro’s hold, the curve of his jugular hardened to stone. When Kuroro allowed himself a look down, his entire head followed in awe and he lost the shred of breath he’d been storing beneath his tongue. There was something distinctly horrifying about paralysis up close.

Because there was no other way to describe it.

Kurapika’s blood ran white, bleaching his skin, eyes unseeing swatches staring into the depression of Kuroro’s clavicle. The shallowest breaths brushed up against knuckles, an instinctive need to survive rather than a conscious effort to do so. Every ounce of strength, every braid of it, was left unravelled in the slacken of Kurapika’s shoulders, the flickering of his chains.

Until the chains disappeared.

Catatonic dread was the lord’s work in the devil’s playground—and it didn’t suit Kurapika. The self-preservation of absolute stillness didn’t suit Kurapika.

_I don’t—_

Kuroro didn’t move and he didn’t blink, their proximity keeping his shock in place. _This—this isn’t right._ When he’d boarded the Whale, he knew what was in store for them. The Continent was a hellscape, a Bethlehem that would mark their ruin or rebirth. It was a given they’d see the world’s foulest creatures— _and Kurapika knew this._ He had to. Zodiacs had intel, unaltered, they had access and authority and a range of abilities that allowed for the quick and accurate cosu—

Kurapika’s hand tapped at his, once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Then a quick succession that grew more desperate until Kuroro dropped his hold. Without a breath left between that second and the next, Kurapika’s body waved and his chest caved and he bent in half to empty his guts onto the ground beside them. Sense had Kuroro looking away, but not before he grabbed the man’s upper arm in an attempt to steady him.

After Kurapika’s heaves dried, scraping coughs against his throat, Kuroro risked a look from his periphery. He’d never pictured seeing him so wrecked, lips a darkened plum, nails clawing at the ridge of his collar like he wanted to tear it open, break it forward.

Vulnerability, in most cases, had Kuroro’s teeth sharpening. Teeth he’d sunken into Neon, into Kalluto—into every single pretty piece who was partial to charm or blood or greed.

He frowned. 

_No._

“That—” Kurapika swallowed, his voice as raw and ruined as his expression. He didn’t look up. “There—there was a _head_ in there. In its mouth.”

Kuroro stared, expressionless.

“Yes.” A young, effete looking boy. “There was.”

When Kurapika retched again, running on empty with nothing left in him, it echoed in Kuroro's chest. He pretended not to hear the lilt of Kurtan tongue that sounded too much like name and not enough like prayer.

_“Pairo.”_

//

Kurapika didn't fight him when he made easy work of a suite's lock. They didn't speak, Kurapika's arms at his sides, eyes unresponsive. Kuroro was a curious creature, but the desire to know couldn't overwhelm his instinct not to address. He doubted he'd get answers, anyway. Kurapika's body spoke of all sorts of discomfort, knees straight and chin angled. Not that Kuroro could blame him—showing vulnerability was one thing.

Putting it on full display for an enemy was another.

And his silence was compromising. It allowed Kuroro's thoughts to race between shifting water and playing cards and the glare of ammunition. His mind's eye still hung on that face— _pretty, morbid, grotesque—_ but even that couldn't keep him from wandering back to Hisoka, to the card he'd left for him. Kuroro was in no mood to pull apart nuances, and off the top of his head, he couldn't think of a meaning for it. _But it has one,_ becauseof course it did. 

Hisoka never played a short hand. 

Continental monsters and cataclysmic lust aside, Kuroro ached more knowing he'd been played, _again._ Pushing the door open, he didn't look to see if Kurapika followed. He didn't need to. Kurapika, in this state and context, would follow—if not out of desire, out of necessity. _Orpheus' insecurity doesn't belong here._

The room was silent and dim-lit, indirects pouring from its corners. Furniture was sleek and well maintained, and when Kuroro’s eyes landed on the windows, he wondered if this was a loft wing—where the rich brought their _other women_ and shadier dealings when primary rooms weren’t covert enough. He wouldn’t be surprised. There was an un-lived-in quality to the room which left it cold, colors deep and unwelcoming.

The open kitchen isle stretched in black granite, glass wall hovering between the common room and an absurdly large bed. _What’s the purpose of a wall,_ Kuroro stared, _if it’s not going to be used for its only affordance._ He looked back when he heard the door click closed. Kurapika was turned away, wig brushing the lower slope of his back.

Kuroro wanted to yank it off.

Platinum meant Yorkshin meant Beitacle meant Kurta meant Hisoka meant _Pakunoda_ meant—

“Take it off.”

Bare muscle coiled, tension creasing Kurapika’s shoulders. The stance was more defense than offense, stiff and unmoving, his hand resting on the sleek handle. There was a stillness to the moment that had Kuroro’s impatience piling. And when Kurapika elected to hold his silence, Kuroro’s lip hitched in a quick rise and quicker fall.

 _If you won’t,_ his pace was long, _I will._

Before he could corner Kurapika, arm extended, the other pirouetted in time to slap his hand sideways and shove him back by the shoulders. The push was powerful, but only drew Kuroro back a step or two, Kurapika’s own form falling to line the door. Everything about him looked like a deer with broken hind legs, staring straight into the muzzle of a rifle.

His face was crushed blackberry, breaths cheap and quick against his lips. He was a shrine of lividity, the open cant of his mouth, the slanted eyes. Kuroro didn’t hesitate. The step he’d lost, he reclaimed, and Kurapika’s body straightened, hinging at the small of his back, head tipping upward. He made no move to get physical, but the missing tail-ends of offense reintroduced themselves.

A chain wound around Kuroro’s neck.

 _You’re not going to kill me,_ eyes large, he towered over Kurapika, watched shadows mark his nose, swim over his cheeks. “I said take it off.”

“No.”

“Do it,” Kuroro’s words were arctic, toneless, “or I’ll rip it from you.”

Kurapika leaned up, head tilting to hover a breath from his, all teeth and snarl. _“Bite me_.”

Kuroro slammed a hand by his head.

The chain tugged him back, enough to keep them apart, though not nearly enough to have him fall away. A gleam of sweat banked along Kurapika’s forehead, fringe parting at odd angles, the scent of his perfume amplified by closeness and humidity. Kuroro’s hand curled by his head, a wince rising where he didn’t want it; one lung felt pressed to hell, blown at its pit and aching with every small, calculated breath he took. Defiance might’ve looked good on Kurapika at every single godforsaken angle—but it didn’t on Kuroro.

Kurapika’s _nen_ didn’t waver, his chains resting their weight on Kuroro’s clavicle. Bruises would soon ink the outline of each ring, just to remind him who it was with the upper hand. Who it was that had Kuroro’s life in a calloused, woodworked palm.

But when those eyes stayed unlit and Kurapika's breathing didn’t even, Kuroro’s gaze narrowed. _Something’s not right._ As he swallowed, _nen_ fading for a half-second, Kuroro placed the issue. His eyes tore across the frame of Kurapika’s face in a timed zigzag, from sweat-damp temples to the deepening grape of his bridge.

“You’re wasted.”

Those four glasses of wine weighed down Kurapika’s shoulders, had him blinking more times than he needed to. It wasn’t surprising. He was young and slight and, as far as Kuroro was concerned, a patron of discipline. Individuals like Kurapika weren’t coded as drinkers, social or otherwise. No, he was watermelon papaya juice before a run, not moody whiskey sours. Kuroro didn’t expect someone like that—who wore their sanctimony as a badge of fucking _honor—_ to hold their liquor.

The chains tightened, flickered, and disappeared.

Kurapika scoffed, anger corroding his common sense. It must’ve taken everything to maintain sobriety up until that point, and this time when he clumsily reached to shove Kuroro, it was easy to wring his wrist and dig nails into tendons. There was a passing glimmer of pain on his expression, but none in his voice.

 _“Go to hell,”_ he spat.

“Stay put,” Kuroro ordered, ignoring him. He made a point to enunciate his words, and by the sharp breath Kurapika let loose, it served its purpose—to offend. Dealing with Kurapika’s volatility was a staple of their interactions, but Kuroro’s mind was banked with too much to try humoring it now. If anything, he needed the intelligent sobriety he’d only seen flashes of in the past. Kurapika, if this was to work, needed to be in his right mind.

Because Kuroro sure as fuck wasn’t.

 _One of us better be, then,_ he left Kurapika standing and made for the kitchenette. Not unlike the dark granite of the counter, the cabinets followed suit with waxed blackwood and glass paneling. Kuroro would’ve given the room his deserved admiration if he wasn’t at his wit's end. Without pausing to marvel at aesthetics, he grabbed a glass and stuck it under the faucet.

Kurapika hadn’t listened to him, not that it was all that surprising.

He'd walked himself to the leather couch, balancing by it on a single leg as he reached to remove the chukka. Angled, he dipped fingers into the suede, calf hanging behind him in a split line of muscle. Tipsy as he was, there was strength in Kurapika's core. His torso didn't sway, and his weighted foot didn't roll, and the quick work he made of his shoes was testament to his agility.

Drunk didn't look like that when Kuroro was young. No, it had come in waves of laughter and flickering streetlights, voices ricochetting off dumpsters that provided their liquor. A disjointed night, a dislocated joint, an inverted skyline of a smile—he welcomed it with the scent of rye on the inside of his sleeve. Then again, when Kuroro was his age, he wasn't negotiating the clauses of life and death with the man he hated most. 

Back then, getting wasted was fun. 

Kurapika dropped onto the couch, barefoot and sans grace.

 _Well,_ Kuroro walked towards him, _that didn’t last very long._ When he offered the glass, Kurapika snatched it. The water tided off the edge and into the gaunt line of knuckles, Kuroro watching without comment as he downed the entire thing. If he wanted Kurapika sober, Kurapika wanted it even more. Hissing out a cough, he set the glass down. 

The stare he shot Kuroro was mute. _I’m not thanking you,_ was louder than Kuroro imagined a silent statement could be.

“You saw something back there,” he decided to say, voice as flat as he could make it. “I want to know what it was.”

“I already told you,” Kurapika intoned, his head tilted downward and his eyes gazing up. Neon blinked against his features, the burn not enough to light those lenses. The black was uncomfortable, too shallow, too much like Illumi's. “I saw a severed head. It was morbid.”

“You threw up,” Kuroro tore into him, “I’d say there’s more to it.”

“I’m drunk.”

“You’re lying.”

“Then call me _squeamish_ ,” Kurapika snapped, a hand bracing against the couch. His nails dug into it, eyes closing with a sigh. It was the picture of someone trying hard to exercise control he didn’t have. Swallowing, he re-met Kuroro’s silent stare. “Stop digging for things you don’t deserve to know.”

“You can’t gatekeep information,” Kuroro cocked his head, monotonous. “You don’t get to decide which dimensions of our situation I should or shouldn’t be privy to.”

“Back _off,_ ” Kurapika’s head snapped up and his fringe loosened with a flick. “You don’t get to ask me things. You don’t get to know everything, you don’t get—”

“But I want to.”

Kurapika’s mouth locked and there was a moment of stillness that fell over them; the eye of the storm. A candid confusion, a transparent disbelief that had Kurapika hesitating. It didn’t last long, and maybe it was the absurdity of Kuroro’s statement—or the entitlement, or the simplicity, or the audacity—that had the hiss building on Kurapika’s features before it left his mouth.

_“You don’t get to have everything you want.”_

Maybe it was all of them.

Kuroro’s back straightened. Wrath had Kurapika’s once deep voice pitching, hiking on the wrong syllables and trembling on the right ones. For the span it took to speak, Kurapika had allowed his inhibitions to fall, and Kuroro couldn’t help but think it made him more vulnerable than hurt ever did. Anger made him more vulnerable.

 _This_ type of anger.

The anger that docked itself on years of fear and self-loathing, of not knowing how much of his mind was his and how much of it was byzantine with resentment, how much belonged to revenge. Kuroro didn’t think he looked good like this. Kurapika didn’t look good like this. Face mutinous with color, his fingers aching with the need to claw at Kuroro. There was rawness there. Hours ago, it would’ve been all Kuroro wanted.

 _Now_ —

His breathing shallowed.

It took conscious effort to fight clearing his throat and before the blood could drip from his nose, he pressed a knuckle under it. Kurapika didn’t comment, still vibrating and scowling and livid-looking. Kuroro closed his eyes, released his hostile joints and made an effort to fall back. He dropped a step or two between them, shoulders pulled downward. His options were limited, and the sting in his sinuses had Kuroro's lashes trembling; _I don't want to fight._

Several breaths. That was what it took to calm the liquid heartburn marathoning up between his lungs.

Several.

“Why me?”

Gaze blinking open, Kuroro sniffed and dropped his hand. The show of relent was enough to placate the harsher edge of Kurapika's expression, it seemed, because while his face was still honest with color, it was markedly calmer. Ship lights faded into his skin, a slow blink that charted white over the break of his jaw and the upward peak of his nose. The question— _demand_ —sounded genuine.

Kuroro just wasn't sure what it wanted.

"Why you?"

“Why me,” Kurapika repeated, pressing a tongue to the corner of full lips. “You could’ve manipulated anyone—any member of the mafia, a prince, a Zodiac. You usually do. You’ve done it before.”

 _Neon Nostrade,_ in name and smile, flashed in his mind. Kurapika’s stare told him that was exactly who he was referring to. Kuroro blinked. “You knew.”

“I didn’t _know,_ ” Kurapika scoffed. He leaned both elbows onto his bare knees, eyes taking to the ocean. The wig was no longer a spill of perfect hair, the strands rising and fraying in response to the heat. They made a subtle web, only marked by the slow blink of white. “I found out.”

“I see.” Kuroro had nothing to say. Instead, he walked forward and sat on the opposite end of the couch, leaving a foot of distance between their bodies. Kurapika didn’t comment, shoulders rolled forward and chest caved in. If Kuroro wanted, he could count the dunes his spine made under skin, each line of muscle in his wingspan.

Knowing he could, gave him no comfort.

Kurta had always been a solid presence in Kuroro’s mind. Even when he’d met Kurapika back in Yorkshin—with that juvenile, vigilante bullshit he was on—Kuroro saw strength in his body. In his resolve.

He saw it now too—just not enough of it.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he started again without turning from the glass. There was no doubt in his mind that Kurapika felt the stare.

“You interest me,” Kuroro said, surprised by his own honesty. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

_That’s one way of putting it._

“Never met someone who hates you?” Kurapika cast him a wry look over the shoulder. “I find that hard to believe.”

Kuroro allowed himself a gentle smile. “Ah, no. I’ve been around plenty of those.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“Name a Zoldyck,” Kuroro quipped, even if the mood flattened any attempt at humor. It didn’t earn him a laugh, but he supposed the snort would have to do for now.

“Pretty sure that family hates everyone save themselves.”

Kuroro leaned his head back against the couch, tilting it in Kurapika’s direction. “I’d say your young friend seemed pretty fond of you.”

Kurapika’s eyes widened, although not by much. It was rare to see him off guard, but as quick as the surprise came, it faded into a far off look. Kurapika looked like he wanted to sigh. “Killua’s only around because Gon’s around.”

“Illumi’s only around because Hisoka is,” Kuroro added, his input useless and he knew it. “I don’t like either of them, so I can’t relate.”

Kurapika stared at him, unimpressed.

Kuroro was almost offended. “They’re not likable individuals.”

“You aren’t either,” Kurapika said. “What you are is delusional.”

“And you’re unpleasant.”

“Good thing I don’t value your character judgment,” Kurapika rolled his eyes. They lapsed into another fit of silence, and by the loosen of Kurapika’s body, Kuroro figured he gave up agency to the alcohol—if only a little. _At least he’s calmed down._ The more he did, the quicker the pain in Kuroro's chest became manageable.

“But yes,” Kuroro started again, following Kurapika’s gaze out to the ocean, ink-waves saturated and rising. “You’re different from others I’ve met before. I—” he paused, “I want to know more about you.”

“Because I fascinate you,” Kurapika bit, cynical. “Like pinned butterflies, shark teeth, pretty _eyes_ —”

“I’ve had my fill of those,” Kuroro countered, sharp and unfeeling enough to make a point. “Never would’ve sold them off otherwise. Never would’ve agreed to give them away again.”

Kurapika turned, appraising him as best as he could with a muddled mind. “Then why _are_ you here?”

“Because you’re different,” Kuroro repeated, because for once, he couldn’t summon the eloquence to describe it. “Powerful, cultured, unbearably intelligent.”

“Unbearably?”

“Unbearably.”

Kurapika stayed silent. There was a strike of disbelief in his gaze, a suspicious narrow that had his lashes sharpening. Kuroro wanted to clear it off his face—so he continued. “You’ve got something I’d only ever seen in my Spiders.”

“What a _compliment_ ,” Kurapika bit, caustic. "Please, let me swing a guess—bloodlust, irrationality?"

“Loyalty.”

Kurapika's inhale came sharp, amusement burning itself thin.

Kuroro took satisfaction in it. “You’re devoted to your cause and your friends. I can respect that.”

“Funny you should talk about loyalty,” Kurapika brought his feet onto the couch, resting his head against bent knees. “When you’re here sipping tea with the man who killed one of your own.”

“Two.”

Shaking his head, Kurapika’s lashes fluttered. “I don’t—”

“Pakunoda.”

Realization dawned, Kurapika casting him a wordless look. He didn’t need to know her name to know who Kuroro was referring to; there were few Spiders with their lives on the line because of Kurapika’s actions. Few Spiders, Kuroro knew, whose name ran in sync with loyalty in Kurapika’s mind. Unable to do much else, Kuroro handed him the sweetest smile and the lowest breath. “Devotion is a fatal virtue, my dear.”

Kurapika bit his lip inward, forehead resting against the high of his legs. He kept his eyes away from Kuroro, as though that small degree of separation hid his turmoil. It didn’t. Kuroro saw the way his fingers curled along his shins, dug soft lines into the shallow skin. For all his talk of blood and gore and vengeance, Kurapika didn’t look ready to kill again.

_You’re mourning martyrs who aren’t yours to mourn._

Something in Kuroro softened.

The grief faded and in its place, came quiet. Kurapika’s expression eased itself into stoicism, hair not thick enough to hide behind. He was ripe with a new type of despondency. Unfeeling. _Relenting._ The words hung between them, a hummed whisper. “Are you trying to manipulate me, Kuroro Lucifer?”

His own words more breath than voice, Kuroro spoke. “What do you think?”

Kurapika’s head turned, sedate and deliberate, light haloing behind him in man-made divinity.

“I think your smile is a very dangerous thing,” faded swatches fell from Kuroro’s eyes to his mouth, bitter. “And you know it.”

Gentle, warm and viciously devastating.

Lungs firing, Kuroro’s confidence waived along with any semblance of peace he’d reached. Kurapika was good at many things, and one of those happened to be reminding Kuroro exactly who they were and where they were and why they were there. Tender energy was exhausted the minute it surfaced, whether or not they meant for it to happen. Kuroro was genocidal and Kurapika was sacrificial—a dangerous combination that enabled their worst traits to manifest. _You’re no good for me._

 _But I’m not—_ Kuroro wanted his thoughts to die, just like the conversation— _I wasn’t trying to lie_.

Honesty stung.

Honesty rejected stung worse.

“Kakin,” Kuroro swallowed the bile and resent when Kurapika hummed without speaking. “What do you know, what should I?”

“I don’t know much more than you, I think,” Kurapika started, dropping one leg to the ground. His foot hovered at an angle, right above the hardwood, and he chose to eye it instead of Kuroro. “Tserriednich’s learning _nen_ , has countless unresolved lawsuits against him and several pairs of Eyes—then there's the _nen_ beast.”

Kuroro didn’t blink. “That _nen_ beast.”

“Bingo.”

“And you’ve seen these creatures before,” Kuroro crossed his arms, fingers fanning against the fabric of his sleeves. “Just not this one.”

Kurapika’s silence was the answer, eyes going from his foot to the far wall in front of them.

Tipping his head back, Kuroro sighed. “At least we know what we’re up against.”

“Don’t you mean who?” There was a gentle innocence to the question, and Kuroro blamed it on the liquor. There was nothing gentle or innocent about Kurapika. Not the Kurapika he knew.

_Not anymore._

“Not anymore.”

Kurapika let out a long breath, halfway exhausted. “Hopefully we won’t be up against anyone or anything. With any luck, one of the princes will finish him off soon.”

“Or I will.” Kuroro put, casual.

Kurapika’s form jerked into movement with a suddenness that bordered on jarring. Leg dropping to the ground, he leaned forward on both palms, bringing himself inches from Kuroro. “No, you absolutely can’t kill him.”

Kuroro flatlined. “I absolutely can.”

_Will, probably._

Kurapika ignored him, eyes harsh and words quick enough to be manic. “You’re going to put Oito at risk, I won’t let you—” he wavered, long enough for Kuroro to catch the glimmer of guilt. “You’re not to fuck with the Succession, period.”

“What risk?” Kuroro frowned, shaking his head unimpressed. “I’m giving her daughter a freebie.”

“You’re giving her daughter a _death sentence,_ ” Kurapika hissed himself straight to sobriety. “One prince dies by way of an independent contractor, and it’s suddenly a free-for-all. Tserriednich can’t die. Not by your hand or mine.”

Kuroro’s eyes lid, tongue brushing up against his lips, a branded irritation he didn’t bother veiling. He droned, “Why do you care so much about this woman?”

“Because I know what it’s like to be a godforsaken outcast,” Kurapika’s words were pressed up against Kuroro’s cheeks in the form of warm, wine-breathed desperation. His jaw was clenched enough to ache, tight with resentment so intimate it had Kurapika’s brows caving at the center. No, he’d never ask Kuroro nicely, not for anything. _He doesn’t need to._ “I swore I would protect them and I will. They won’t die for me—and definitely not for my cause. I’ve lost too many people to it already.”

Kuroro was spectral. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, no wit and no warning there to spit, the pull in his shoulders releasing. Effortless honesty never failed to leave Kuroro lost, and Kurapika's made his lungs ache and tighten; _I really_ _haven’t met anyone like you._ “You’re more selfless than I imagined.”

Kurapika’s head fell, hair hanging over his shoulders, pooling onto the couch.

“You don’t know me.”

“I know.”

 _But I want to,_ went unsaid.

Kurapika lifted his head, and there was something terrible about the way he looked at Kuroro—like he wanted to be anything but there, anything but drunk, anything but _them._ Kuroro didn’t want to address it. “I wonder what it’d be like to fight someone like you, someone with an honor code stronger than his fear of death."

Kurapika said nothing.

_Oh._

Winded with realization, Kuroro spoke. "You’re more invested in this thing than you are in killing me.”

He wasn't sure why that bothered him.

“Burying them is more important than burying you,” Kurapika tilted his head, bitterness saturating his expression. “They deserve to rest.”

_You don’t._

Kuroro let out a gentle breath; he didn’t deserve most of the things he coveted. Not the money or the loyalty or the peace of mind. More often than not, he managed to land opulence in the most gruesome ways, his conscience a dead thing he neither loved nor understood, but dragged around for appearance’s sake. There was no real explanation for it. Kuroro wanted things, Kuroro devoted time to taking things, and then Kuroro gave them away.

Just like the Eyes, just like the indulgence, just like the gentleness in Kurapika’s collar.

“Rest,” he repeated, for lack of anything to say. The word felt foreign, a single-syllable weighing more on his mind than wound lead.

“Yeah,” Kurapika dropped back onto his knees, hands falling to fold in his lap. “The dead all should.”

There was a morbid yearning pressed in there that Kuroro chose not to address. He nodded, turning his body to face Kurapika, elbow angled against the back of the sofa. When they met eyes, he made sure every ounce of his being radiated solemness. “And did you bury him?”

_Uvogin._

Kurapika didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Would you have buried me, had you killed me back then?”

“Yes.”

“Would you bury me now?”

It took a moment and half an exhale. “Yes, I would.”

Kuroro swallowed, not caring how that show of hesitation came off. The night wore darker, a shade or two before daybreak, running lines of ink against their form. Like light, like shade, the neons set Kurapika’s skin on fire in shades of white and magenta, and it took everything in him not to lean into it. The carve of his throat, the score of his lashes, the perfect umbrella of his shoulders—whether it was words or wisdom, beauty or brutality, Kuroro wanted to fold himself into Kurapika.

Wanted to stay there.

Where the pain was, where the loyalty lay.

_What are you doing to me?_

The question was harder to answer this time around.

“Why?” Kuroro’s voice was thick, baritone no longer honey-hummed but dense and tough to swallow. “I didn’t grant your people that luxury.”

“Because you think of it as a luxury,” Kurapika didn’t sound angry, though the mark of knowingness wasn’t lost on Kuroro. Of course Kurapika knew; Kurapika was the one who'd buried them, will bury them. _W_ _hat remains of them, again._ “Mercy isn’t a luxury.”

Kuroro held his silence long enough for Kurapika to heave in a readying breath.

“We’re human,” the way he angled his head upward was all relent. “No one should be buried with their sin. It’s cruel enough to live with—and where I come from,” _ah,_ “we honor our dead to free the living.”

“You’re superstitious.” It was a useless observation. Kuroro made it anyway, if only to see Kurapika turn to look at him again with the depth of a man drunk off memory.

“Spiritual,” he corrected. “Not that you would know the difference between the two.”

“Then teach me.”

The demand had left without volition and Kuroro was surprised to find he meant it.

He expected hesitation, maybe a slur tossed with too much or too little energy. Kurapika’s tongue didn’t curl or spit or bite, though, and instead, he rested a head sideways against leather and ran his palm into the wig. Straightening out webbed strands, twisting the tips and flattening the rise.

Fingers gripping the fringe, he pushed it to the ground.

Kuroro’s breath wedged itself into the attic of his throat, stayed there long enough to choke, long enough for the blond of Kurapika’s hair to loosen out of its hold. If the moonlight of that wig did him justice, then the sunlight waxing his hair made him godly. Under indirects, Kuroro saw roots stained brown and strands iced like lemonade, summer burned in color.

“Give me a reason to,” he hummed, staring. Kuroro was a foul opportunist, and nothing could stop him from using that moment to marvel at the keen drops of Kurapika’s profile. “You don’t deserve to hear about my people.”

“I don’t,” Kuroro couldn’t hear himself, “but I’m the only one who’ll listen.”

_And you know it._

Kurapika’s eyes flicked to him with dangerous sobriety.

It took no blink.

“We used pyres, fortified them with wood from Maiden Oaks.” Kuroro’d never heard of the tree before, and it must’ve shown on his face because Kurapika didn’t hesitate with a stiff follow-up. “The bark has no name in this language.”

“Because it only grew in Lukso.”

Kurapika’s eyes lid, indifference handling his reins. He continued, “We’d spread the ashes in open spaces. From the earth we lived, so it's owed our lives once they’re over.”

“And if there’s no pyre?”

Kurapika’s shrug was single-shouldered. “We bury.”

“And—” Kuroro licked his lips, biting down on the words of his own question“—what of men without graves?”

Those who ended up in oceans.

“They haunt,” Kurapika said, simple, though there was nothing simple about the way he held Kuroro’s gaze—flat and merciless and oh-so knowing.

Kuroro's jaw rolled. “You believe in ghosts?”

“I believe in memories,” Kurapika shot back, “The good and the bad. They force us to live in a past which no longer belongs to us. Honoring the dead allows them to rest and it allows us to forget—to _live_.”

Kortopi’s knotted hair flashed in Kuroro’s mind, the sleepless hours of staring at screens that left Shalnark yawning for days as collateral. The firmness of the memory had him wincing. There was no way of knowing where Hisoka had left them, how he’d killed them.

Unlike Kurapika, Hisoka was never taught the letters that made up words like _honor_ and _mercy._

The queen stung his thigh through fabric.

“And that’s why you’re doing this,” Kuroro’s voice was shallower than he would’ve liked, “to forget.”

 _Maybe we’re both selfish, then._ Kurapika didn’t answer for a long, deliberate moment. He let his body fall back, the arch of his back fitting into the curve of the armrest. Swallowing, Kuroro followed the cave of his ribs down to Kurapika's reflection in glass, cast against the open ocean, hair curling along hardwood. Their eyes met.

Kurapika's were a torn, parted sight—their depth new and unreal. When he did speak, the admission was soft and somber.

“Maidens bloomed whitest in spring.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **girdle of venus** : _describes how a person’s emotions fluctuate; indicates the temperament of each individual. those with a defined ring of venus get hurt easily and react violently to love._
> 
> sorry for being mia, guys! have 7k+ of nothing happening as compensation lmao 
> 
> really hope you liked it, pretty please let me know if you did/n't! i have motivation in the negatives so any feedback will help me get off my butt 🤹
> 
> 'til the next one, friends!


	5. act v. mount of venus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it gets spicier y'all time to bump that rating lmaoo also i wrote this on a 5-hour flight and it drained my life force haa i need to give up on these chapter counts because who am i kidding 
> 
> "this is a short fic" she lied, like a liar. chrome had a stroke uploading this lol #11k&counting

_please_

buttermilk skin gives under his thumbs, bruising whiter with pressure. it sounds demand against the diamond cut of kurapika’s hips, strong enough to eclipse scar tissue for a moment of no breath and all momentum. kuroro has no mind to mind, fingers pressing harder into the dual dips at the base of kurapika’s spine—an arch both high and low, light chancing against each break of back— _please I want yo—_

desperation has his hold tighten, has him stopping

light corrodes their bodies and kuroro doesn’t care enough to find out where it was coming from only that it carved out the curl of kurapika’s wingspan and the landscape of leg, coiled. he presses in with his body and kurapika yields under him—bronze bruised folding—searing need forcing him down, teeth cutting at the pillow. under _me_. under this. hair clings to kuroro’s forehead and he has half a mind to push it back— _skin,_ yours, _i want to hear_ —but elects not to because moving meant _re_ moving, meant his fingers searing clean off of kurap—he grabs blond hair and forces a deeper curve in kurapika’s form when he pulls

_ah, fuck, kuror—can’t breathe—_

kurapika’s form jolts with the force of movement.

he doesn’t finish when kuroro expects him to. five, six pants a heartbeat. four, five pants a second. sweat glazes kurapika’s skin, a humid balm of cologne-coated warmth kuroro remembers on kurapika’s collar. crumpled collar. silk-strewn floor exiled shirt collar. kurapika makes a broken sound and kuroro drags his fingers from hair down again to spine-base and in one movement his thumbs press upward—up, _up_ —to kurapika’s nape.

like clay, he gives—soundless, mouth hung.

 _but I’m not done_ but it doesn’t matter. the tilt of kurapika’s head is promise enough that it’ll be soon. kuroro flattens his palm between shoulders, bringing it down kurapika’s back to slot against his hip. his movements are faster, rougher, callous—they’re quicker and he can hear the labor in kurapika’s breathing can see it in the red at his throat and the dampness of hair and the clutch of chipping nails into bedsheet

and the sight is a detached euphoria. a finger’s breadth from the godforsaken esoteric

 _sigh, sob,_ please

 _i—just like that._ the winding landscape of back rolled, wound waves of muscle fusing into each other. maybe it’s rye-rum skin, maybe it’s the equally intoxicating spill of sound that sees kuroro marrying the moment and its pleasure

marrying the string of a body, taffy-tongued humming, six-millisecond sighs—

_please, plea—i can’t—_

_i_

_—yours_

mine

_“i think—i love y—”_

_“—good”_

//

Kuroro’s eyes opened on inhale, blinking themselves into the present. Reality reintroduced itself, sea breeze curling in his lungs like the perfect cold to the heat in his abdomen. The Whale was easy to recognize, the sway of an uncovered bulb forcing Kuroro’s mind awake; it was no simple thing, being awake. Flashes of skin— _Kurapika’s_ skin, broke the fragile line of his imagination. Kurapika, under him, body coiled and moving in tandem with his own—it was an image with no weight in reality.

_Ah, Christ._

He licked the salt from his lips, the night’s humidity perched in their corners. _Sappho, save me._ Kuroro didn’t need to look down to know he was hard, the rioting of his face—godawful warm, sunset flushed—was a hint he could’ve done without. The dizzying heat had him sighing; Kuroro wasn’t delusional—he knew attraction when he felt it. Kurapika had triggered it at some point, and whether it was due to sharpened teeth or the soft bracket of his mouth made no difference. Kuroro wanted to fuck him.

_You’re going to kill me._

There was an element of power there, imbedded in folds of desire and admiration. Kurapika was a heavy assortment of ‘ _try me’_ s and ‘ _fuck you’_ s _._ He didn’t fold when his cards failed him, he didn’t yield in fights he knew he’d lose— _maybe that’s what it is,_ the burning need to control something Kuroro found uncontrollable. The small hearth in his chest protested the thought, too warm to hurt and too present to forget.

 _This is fucking ridiculous._ Kuroro’s chuckle was a warm breath against his lips, one hand open across his chest, arm slug over his eyes, _what’s happening to me?_ Kurapika was a map of disaster and Kuroro wanted to chart every god-challenging, king-killing part of him. Wanted the neon veins, the whines, the dialed fuse— _we work too well to call this luck._ It had been two weeks, maybe three—he’d lost count, the ocean made sure of it—since Kurapika had opened up with wine and whispered memory, since they’d begun meeting at intervals.

Kuroro’s fingers stroked the lines of his stunted tattoo.

For just as long, the tree on his chest hadn’t bloomed further. The _henna_ branches remained static, their edges unfinished strokes along his pectorals. The single flower made it asymmetrical, threw the image to the left more than the right, and Kuroro found it particularly unfortunate when his heart picked up under it. _A maiden oak,_ he breathed, allowing his hand to travel down over his abdomen, reaching for heat, _that’s what you called it._ And how perfect that the very thing killing Kuroro was grown in honor of those Kurapika loved. Wrapping a hand around himself, Kuroro’s exhale tightened in his throat and flew past his teeth with a hiss.

 _Gods,_ it had been so long.

Bacchanalian and unbecoming and so fucking _good_ , he stroked himself with slow rolls of the wrist. A flood of heat numbed his gut, thighs tightening and knees rising. It had been forever and a day since he’d immolated himself like this, willingly gave into the burn and the pleasure of something so unbearably primal. Kuroro didn’t put himself above desire— _no man can_ —because the sharp edge of indulgence was why he did what he did. _This desire though—_ hadn’t had the opportunity.

Until now.

His lust burned blue-hot and his chest caved with a pant, head thrown back into the pillow. Kuroro brought a hand up to grip the headboard, trying not to have iron fold. Keeping his _nen_ in check would’ve been the hardest part—if not thinking of Kurapika wasn’t so much harder. Like the barrel of a smoking revolver, Kuroro’s skin seared; Kurapika was too easy to think of.

Kurapika on his knees, fingers wrung against thighs, mouth wrapped around Kuroro’s dick—

_‘—yours’_

He’d look up with copper burned lashes weighed with desire, his smile a delirious skyline of white and his lip bit under breath—

And his voice.

_Fuck._

Kuroro bit into his teeth, let groans grind in his chest rather than the cabin. When the chuckle left him, it did with breathless hysteria, _ah, so this is it: the larval stage of defeat._ The premature start of something dangerous, something bigger than he was willing to deal with. There was risk going into this, he’d known. The risk of dying, the risk of getting caught, the risk of losing everything to distraction. Kuroro knew, the minute he’d read _Paramour’s Parasite,_ that a faulty miss was all it would take.

One thing was for sure, though: it should’ve been a slower fall. A more calculated—“ah, _goddess_ ”—descent. His hand tightened at the base, strokes faster and harder to the image of Kurapika in his mind’s eye; Kuroro was supposed to be in control. Kuroro _was_ in control.

Kuroro knew what he was doing, always.

 _I can’t_ —his grip on the bed rail was strong enough to dent it. He closed his eyes, housing desire in his pulse and tightening gut. _I won’t_ _fall before you do._

He couldn’t afford it.

_You’re mine before I’m yours._

When he came, Kuroro pretended it wasn’t to the thought of Kurapika’s soundless lips trying his name.

//

“We haven’t seen you in a couple of days, _danchou,_ ” Shizuku walked by his side, not looking up from her phone. “You’re awfully busy with this Hisoka stuff.”

Kuroro smiled, his mood at peace. “A little bit, yes.”

Hisoka, Tserriednich.

 _Kurapika_.

Busy with too many names and too many things, but at least it wasn’t the tightening of his chest. The seed was idle—had been for days—and although he felt its weight lining his lungs, he felt no resin and no burn. If Kuroro tried hard enough, he could con himself into thinking it was benign. The fullness was a parody of what it had been weeks prior, the burn subbed in for warmth that was almost comforting. Kuroro wasn’t sure what triggered the ceasefire in his lungs—Kurapika’s vulnerable admissions, their contact, or the emotions which sat unregistered and unacknowledged in his own mind.

Kuroro wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Whatever the parasite did or didn’t do would have to ride in the back burner until it proved terminal. _Well,_ he tucked his hands into his coat pockets, _imminently terminal._ Both killing Hisoka and the Kakin heist took precedence over Kuroro’s own existential crises. The personal dilemmas would have to wait.

Because while sleep did nothing to veil or sate his attraction, conscious effort went a long way.

“I have been,” he repeated, looking down at her over his shoulder. “And you? You haven’t tried updating me in days, neither has Bonolenov.”

Shizuku blinked up at him, shrugging a shoulder. “I don’t have news, really. Nothing more than what I think I said before.”

“Nothing more on the Hei-Ly, the Cha-R?”

She stared at him.

Kuroro sighed. _And there it is—_ again.

“Don’t worry about it,” he placed a hand at the pit of her spine, urging her forward. “You go on ahead. There’s something I have to do.”

“So soon?” She blinked up at Kuroro, innocence rounding her eyes. Pushing the frame of her glasses back with a straight middle-finger, Shizuku hummed. “You’re always running off. Are you keeping secrets, _danchou?_ ”

Kuroro laughed, a dull sounding chuckle that was more honest than forged, although not by much. “Naturally.”

Her smile was small, and it inspired a fondness that had Kuroro stroking her back.

“Please take care,” he was gentle, making sure she was the only one who heard the softness of it. “Tell Bonolenov to do the same. Let’s meet two nights from today, I might have more information then.”

“Sure thing, _danchou,_ ” Shizuku pinned the date into her phone upon his request and nodded. Walking away, she waved a hand behind her. “Don’t die, yeah?”

A snort ripped out of him

He said it more to himself than anything. “I’ll do my best.”

//

Kuroro had a plan. _Plan,_ of course, being the generous term for breaking-and-entering. He’d been turning the possibilities over in his mind after their last meeting—a brief thing which lasted all of three minutes, with Kurapika stiffly handing him a schedule for the Crown’s events—and the only thing he could come up with was a limit-the-body-count undercover scope operation. Generous, generous branding for _‘Kurapika would throw a godforsaken fit if someone_ else _dropped dead.’_

 _Terrific,_ Kuroro adjusted his bowtie in the mirror. There was a naiveté to their exchange he couldn’t help appreciating. Even with pseudo-iron around their hearts, to have Kurapika trust him with the royal family’s glorified to-do list was nothing short of a miracle. He wasn’t someone who dropped his guard. Kuroro couldn’t believe his luck, largely because it was a rare currency for him these days, _good god_. The orders were clear, though: memorize and destroy _._ Easy enough for a man whose culture lived off of oral communication, not so much for Kuroro.

Hadn’t stopped him from obeying.

 _Obeying,_ he cocked his head, studying himself with wide eyes, _don’t think I’ve done that in years._ Kuroro expected it to thin him with disbelief, that elemental frustration which came with losing control. It didn’t. Instead, nostalgia did his bidding and Kuroro kept the temporary smile in place for however long it chose to stay. Kurapika had a—humbling quality to him. He reminded Kuroro that intelligence, however rare, wasn’t his alone.

Brutality wasn’t his alone.

 _Mercy isn’t weakness_.

He didn’t patten being cutthroat. Every god in every story and every man in every myth who brushed up against danger, learned to channel anger in the most self-destructive ways. Kuroro swallowed, stomach knotting. _He’s incredible,_ despite a heart that occasionally bled for those who didn’t deserve it. _I wonder,_ Kuroro pressed a palm to his lapel, straightening it out, fingers lingering over the unseen cut of his own heart. _Would your yours bleed for me, as it did for Paku?_

He didn’t dwell on the thought too long.

Kuroro turned down to the man he’d knocked out. If Kurapika’s information was correct, which he had little doubt of, this was the head pianist for tonight’s event. A man with a complicated name—accented and unpronounceable to anyone with less than a couple million jenny in their bank accounts—and a face polished with arrogance.

All it took was one well-placed elbow to the cerebellum to pocket Kuroro a ticket to the party. _What a bargain,_ he hummed a private laugh, throwing the man’s slack body onto the bed.

When he stepped out of the cabin, Kuroro was met with the familiar scent of incense and the ritual click of heels. Royal events looked like this—decks flooded with chiffon-tailed dresses and netted oriental gold, men’s robes swatched to their partner’s satin underskirts. There was none of the elegant, neoliberal simplicity of _Le Parisien_. This was bigger, better, gaudier in its grandeur. The laughter was too loud and the boasting louder, and although it took Kuroro a good three minutes of weaving past people and avoiding dragging skirts, making it to the ballroom felt like freedom.

Small, small victories.

Charm got him everywhere, though this was one of the few moments where Kuroro didn’t crutch on it. There was no need, not with no one looking—guards’ eyes hung off their patrons and not an inch edgewise. Each individual here, he knew, was someone important in their respective sphere. They garnered respect, wore and weighted it across their chest in the form of flowering cavansite and gold. Kuroro could respect it—that ability to solidify power, make it into something tangible. Showing off was cheap, but having the means to do so was everything.

Everything.

Kuroro strode, eyes cataloging in the space in smooth takes from domed ceilings to the faint sway of chandeliers. The grandness was easy to admire, a little bigger than life and a little too regal for his liking, but still unparalleled in its beauty. Kuroro didn’t expect less from _maison_ Kakin; _new money reeks_. Not that he had room to talk. Kuroro wasn’t old money.

Wasn’t new money, either.

Wasn’t money, period.

There was pride to be had there, and like with everything else, Kuroro helped himself to it. Having nothing meant seeing the raw, unfiltered film, seeing the world for what it was, people for who they were and what they would become. No cash, credit or crystal could buy knowledge of that magnitude. Experiencing reality was far more valuable than buying its luxuries. _Besides,_ he walked through the backstage door like he belonged there and no one questioned whether he did, _it’s only fun if you can have your cake and eat it too._

Being a thief was a glorious pastime.

Hidden behind the weight of satin curtains, the grand piano was just that: grand. Kuroro’s heart picked up at the sight, drowned in the white of it, the mother pearl of its propped lid. A shine glazed the surface, white flashing whiter under lights, tusk keys polished to a fault. Kuroro almost didn’t want to touch it, in fear he might leave print on the surface. But as the selfish creature he was, Kuroro walked himself closer with the strides of a man knocked by admiration, taken by inspiration.

All it took was a finger set against it, and the key fell under touch like melted butter; Kuroro inhaled through his teeth. _What a piece,_ he’d seen his fair share of wonderful instruments, made from unorthodox material, auctioned on black markets, gifted to despots— _and she’s up there._ Royalty flaunted wealth through finer arts, indeed. Just like the silk-soft book pages, Kakin craft was nothing short of opulent. A stark difference from the strained subway tile of lower tiers.

_White, white, white._

A color of absolute purity in a place of absolute sin. 

“We go in less than a minute,” the stage director's voice was pleasant, pitched to frankness. Kuroro’s dreadful need to keep his eyes on the piano—a con’s fear it would vanish—made it hard to look at the man. Against his winding gut, he did.

“Please have a seat, sir!”

Kuroro’s grace came back in spades and a smile. “Of course.”

 _Well,_ he turned back to the piano once the man had walked away, a sense of excitement brewing his nerves. _It’s been a while, but I’m sure I can come up with something._ Kuroro allowed the feeling to terrify him, let the childish thrill humble him. There was something about pianos that got his pulse drumming. It was familiar, brought him back to the night he’d found the pulled-apart pieces of an electric keyboard—cut his teeth on pitching keys and cloudy octaves too high or too deep or too imbalanced.

Kuroro slid onto the leather bench, the heels of both palms hovering just short of the bank.

When the curtain rose, they dropped. It was a fluid fall to sound—a press of one key for warmth, the next for comfort, the last of his opening for inspiration. Slow as it was, Kuroro buried himself in the echo it carried across the hall, the statement it made as those watching fell silent, and the liberation of sound shook cord and wine-in-glass. Kuroro didn’t look up, didn’t look past his own fingers and the ease that slid them into rhythm.

_Requiem in D Minor._

A slow and funereal tune that inked into the atmosphere, hypnotic in the same way monsters and legends became after years of falling from tongues. Kuroro let his mind guide him before his conscience, and the morbidity of the music was enough to bench any sound other than the cords of a pristine, mother pearl piano. Falling into it was easy, the simple chaos of art; it was impossible to fail. Art couldn’t fail, and art, in and of itself, was the loneliest of accomplishments—but it was an accomplishment nonetheless.

And its survival lay in accepting its tragedy.

 _Ah, how pretentious,_ he smiled, eyes fluttering to a close. _I’m getting ahead of myself._

Like the pulse of a dream, the set ended as gradual decline—one, two, three presses of minor keys—and the breath tied to his canine released. It had been eight minutes, maybe more, of playing. Long enough to distract, but nowhere near long enough to entertain; Kuroro imagined the initial tracklist was longer, perhaps grander and more spirited. Not that he cared much. He didn’t plan on sitting here all night long; _I’m sure the orchestra will do a fine job of following up._

Being the opening act was enough to bolster his pride, though, and when the elegant click of applause started, Kuroro flashed his audience a pleasant smile. The perfect class of decorum, coated in a tux, slicked hair and the open angle of arrogance. If he was to be a skilled pianist, _gotta play the part, right?_

_As if._

He got up, placing a palm to his chest before inclining his head.

Raising his gaze, Kuroro’s spine rippled with excitement; from across the room, Kurapika’s eyes bore into him with flat intensity, their corners sharp with an emotion he wasn’t inclined to name. Kuroro swallowed the remnants of that morning’s lust, ordered his constitution to hold strong. Kurapika looked as he always did—stern and severe, his hair bridging the space between neck and shoulders. The control he had over his own body was a masterpiece; there wasn’t a single shift in that body that gave away who Kuroro was.

 _For someone who feels so strongly,_ he dropped a subtle wink, _one would assume you’d be less disciplined around me._

Kurapika stared, stoic.

_Oh well._

It took a moment, but Kurapika’s gaze fell back to the woman he was speaking to. If Kuroro had to chance a guess, it was another Zodiac. Her dress was unorthodox, canine-inspired and juvenile like the rest of them, _Yorkshire_. Kuroro was almost glad Kurapika hadn’t taken up a similar aesthetic. _Can’t really imagine you doing it,_ Kuroro lifted his head and flashed another half-billion jenny’s worth smile, tacitly scanning the room for another, less familiar face he knew he’d find.

He just didn’t think it’d be tilted in his direction.

_Tserriednich._

Seated at a table without company, the prince had an arm propped back onto his chair, expression a love song to morbid interest. Kuroro made a mental note of it all—the satin robes, the well-groomed beard. He was younger than Kuroro imagined he’d be, possibly a year or two from Kuroro’s own age. _Handsome._ How inconvenient. Beauty was one key to insecurity, and the less of it a person had, the more susceptible they were to manipulation. Confident individuals were a tougher deal.

And those whose confidence rested on intelligence were the worst of all.

Given the slant of eyes, it wasn’t hard to venture which categories Tserriednich fell under. A man who sat alone, who basked in his own company—

 _Ah, wonderful._ Kuroro held his gaze, _because I was lacking in sociopaths._

He sat back down onto the bench as people began to mingle once more. It was a needed interlude until he managed to think of his next step. Only he didn’t get the chance, periphery catching sight of Kurapika walking towards the stage.

“Want to tell me what it is you think you’re doing?”

Kuroro looked up from the keyboard, blinking in faux surprise. “Hello.”

“We agreed on communicating,” Kurapika didn’t sound angry, his indifference stark from his usual range. Kuroro’s eyes hinged on the faint, near unnoticeable brush of gold on his cheeks; it was dangerous how distracting he was, all pursed lips and no compromise. “You’re to tell me what you’re planning, and you’re to let me know when you plan on acting.”

“I don’t,” Kuroro commented, casual as he ran fingers across the keyboard, enjoying the warmth. If he wasn’t invested in studying Kurapika, he might’ve missed the quick side-ways flit of his eyes. _So you are on guard after all._ “Plan on acting, that is. I’m only scoping out the place. I like to get a feel for my marks before I look at blueprints.”

“You could’ve let me know,” Kurapika insisted, his voice dropping lower. Raising a hand, he placed a glass of liquor onto the piano’s hood and it took everything in Kuroro not to wince. _You have no respect for finer luxuries, my love, even if you are terribly smart._ Smart was marginal in comparison to the depth of Kurapika’s intelligence, he knew. Kuroro had yet to see the full scope of it, but subtle things gave it away. _Like an excuse to talk to the pianist, disguised as a glass of courtesy._

_Jokes on you, I don’t like vodka._

“I could’ve,” Kuroro started, looking up from the drink to Kurapika, who hovered closer. “But I didn’t know how to contact you.” 

“You’re lying,” Kurapika dismissed him, brow sharp enough to carve diamond. His bare collar reached out from under his shirt, adding a fragile strength to his shoulders. “So I’m going to ask you again: why didn’t you—”

“You distract me,” Kuroro’s baritone curled and thickened like walls of honeycomb, smile twice as sweet. “Too much and far too easily.”

Kurapika’s mouth hung in a small, off-guard gape, before clicking shut. “Enough nonsense, Lucifer. I could’ve given you details on—”

“You _distract_ me.” Kuroro breathed his amusement, suave. “I need the mind space to focus.”

 _And that isn’t going to happen with my mind set on you._ The soft look has Kurapika frowning, a downturn of the mouth that spoke more to petulance than annoyance. “You’re a decent quality bullshitter.”

“Sure am,” Kuroro widened his smile when Kurapika scoffed, head shaking.

With ease, Kurapika reached into his blazer, pulling out a small device. He held it out to Kuroro. “Here.”

Kuroro blinked down, surprised. It was a small phone without a keypad or home button—a cheap thing worth less than a good bottle of gin. “A burner? There’s no service on the Whale.” 

“It’s on the Crown.”

 _Convenience of the ultra-rich,_ Kuroro raised an eyebrow, impressed but not surprised. It made sense that, while they all suffered land-bound mobile services, Kakin would provide its Crown and crew with sufficient resources to stay in contact. Kuroro would’ve been more annoyed if Kurapika wasn’t willingly sharing th— _wait._

“There’s no number on here but yours,” Kuroro took the device with delayed realization. “And no number but yours will work with it.”

“Yes.” Kurapika sighed, biting his lip and allowing his lapel fall back. Kuroro’s eyes flashed for half a heartbeat, catching sight of an all too familiar edge of red. “Text, don’t call. It’ll be suspect if my phone is going off.”

“What’s that?” Kuroro ignored the demand in favor of his own, patience wavering when recognition set in. His attention swept over Kurapika’s chest, challenging. “In your pocket. What is that?”

“None of your concern,” Kurapika was a flippant creature, Kuroro learned, when pushed into a corner. Dismissive and nonchalant, unwavering. Humanity basked in its own nervous fear, while he stood stiff and unblinking. It was inspired, really—but Kuroro knew exactly what was hidden behind the silk lining.

“I don’t like this game.” Kuroro offered up a palm, face up. _Offered_ was liberal: there was no room for negotiation in the sharpening of his mood. Gradual as the shift may have been, it only spanned a moment or so. Playful eyes stoned and his lips flattened and both at once had Kurapika’s determination rusting. “And you’ll forgive me for not playing it.”

Kurapika’s shoulders loosened with relent. He slid a hand into his blazer, before presenting Kuroro with a blood-streaked card of sevens, slotted between two fingers. It had the same wide paint strokes of the queen, with no spades in sight. The red of seven diamonds cut symmetrically across it. Kuroro didn’t tremble, even when the fragile line of his trapezii tightened. “You didn’t give me this when you found it.”

There was no anger in Kurapika’s voice, no argument. “I didn’t.”

Kuroro wanted to look at him, but the card in his hand—red by force of suit and circumstance—kept him from doing it. “I want you to tell me why.”

“Simple,” Kurapika took the flowering rage in stride, crossed his arms and cupped his elbows. “I was using it to track him.”

Him.

“Yeah?”

Kurapika hummed through a swallow. “It’s—over a week old. Eleven days, I’d say. Ten if we’re pressing.” _The blood._ The killing.

 _He knows._ Hisoka knew they were working together, he wouldn’t leave a card where Kurapika would find it otherwise. It was a naked taunt, a punch to the throat Kuroro wasn’t afforded the luxury to ignore. Challenges that compromised life were defining, paramount. And this—this was no different. An overt kiss to the cheek which marked the beginning of a stage far more sinister than Kurapika’s gospel of revenge. Hisoka wasn’t out for revenge—he was a petty, petty bitch who couldn’t stomach the thought of loss. Couldn’t fathom the idea of being graved.

 _A sore_ fucking _loser._

_I will bury you alive, Morrow—and none but your demons will mourn you._

Kuroro’s brow ticked. The splash of red was darker than paint, a shade of burgundy he was too familiar with not to recognize. It wasn’t a romantic color—nothing like the ruby of a card suit. It was the hue of a painful, underhanded slice into the neck. Silence took its place between them until Kurapika decided it had no business being there.

“Did you,” he started, hesitating before he could finish the question. Kurapika was far too daring not to, though, and despite the breath of worry, he continued. “Did you manage to find out what the other card meant, the one you found?”

“Code,” Kuroro intoned, eye-sockets warm with stifled fury, body rioting with the tail ends of something dangerous. Kuroro hadn’t given much thought to what Hisoka may have intended with leaving behind those morbid mementos. His head was a minefield, and rationality had no hope of survival in such a landscape; Kuroro wasn’t deluded enough not to realize that. _Naive,_ his jaw ached something terrible with how tight he left it. Thinking of only Kurapika was naive. “Must be. A prediction mechanism he wants me to pick up on.”

When Kurapika didn’t comment, the moment left hanging on the ends of his own blind illations, Kuroro looked up. There was a twitch in his body; Kuroro recognized it as the urge to reach out, a pitying generosity in his eyes. Kuroro’s expression dived darker.

“I don’t think it’s a prediction,” Kurapika’s mouth tilted in time with the sharp, angry slant of Kuroro’s eyes. _It’s a tally._

“No,” Kuroro dismissed the idea, fingers curling around the vodka glass rather than against the grand piano. The residue of enjoyment and excitement died on tongue, loosened the hold on his joints and had forced nonchalance dominate. “There’s a number missing,” _Shalnark’s “_ these aren’t currently representative. You’re wrong.”

Maybe Kuroro didn’t want to think about it for too long, didn’t want to yield conclusions that would land too heavy in his gut. It was a type of terror—emotional, he ventured, cruel and visceral—he wasn’t quite ready to face. Either Kurapika didn’t care, or he didn’t recognize the shred of hostile regret simmering under the surface, because his expression didn’t change. Not in emotion or architecture, and under the warm glow of a chandelier, Kuroro was reminded of how effortlessly cruel Kurapika could be.

“Have you looked for it?”

When Kuroro winced, Kurapika’s pity canyoned—and the glass in his hand shattered.

It was a mess of dusted shard and a spill of blood brown enough to rival the card of sevens. _No,_ was the response his lips refused supplying, even when the tension in his body was more than prepared to betray. Pain numbed his inner knuckles, glass and strain cutting into his tendons, sending it sailing into fingertips. Kuroro kept his fist locked, not watching blood—diluted by alcohol and burning because of it—pool out from between his nails. Kurapika inhaled through his nose, taking a half-step backward.

Glass clinked, piece by piece, as Kuroro uncurled his fist.

Kurapika’s exhale came silent, and as though the tension between them couldn’t tighten further, an influx of familiar _nen_ welcomed itself into the interaction. Familiar and patented as, Kuroro decided with a tight jaw, the end of the world. An abysmal, hollow _nen_ that was too lofty to be Hisoka’s and too untrained to be Kurapika’s. With a slow rise of the head, Kuroro met eyes with an approaching Tserriednich.

He held himself broad, strides wide, felling confidence every time his heel hit the ground. It was hard to stare at him when his _pet_ hovered so close behind, its head suspended over his shoulder. It was no less disgusting than the first time he’d seen it, body grander and far more terrible in full view. Kuroro didn’t give it nearly as much focus this time around, what with the dial of _nen_ earning his attention. 

Tserriednich’s smile hit too close to home—too close to wicked pleasantries and vicious intelligence. Kuroro didn’t muster one of his own, didn’t try to, his mood taking a steeper dive than it already had. Kurapika’s form was transparent in its loathing, _nen_ waving just short of release. Even then, his face gave no indication he’d felt the man coming, no indication of anything save apathy. When Kurapika made no move to turn around and face the prince, Kuroro was reminded of the young head locked in that thing’s throat.

 _He made a biblical mistake he doesn’t even know of,_ Kuroro measured the distance between Tserriednich’s eyes with his own, _didn’t he, my dear?_ Not even the gold-strung stitching could distract from how wary Kuroro became.

_The fall of Rome, promised and epitomized._

Coming to a stop just short of the piano, Tserriednich landed a palm center Kurapika’s wingspan; not one in three pretended his form didn’t ripple with hostility. Like the gentleman he was, though, Kurapika did nothing but turn a look over his shoulder. Kuroro watched the stretch of his throat tighten with tension. There was no way in high hell Tserriednich didn’t feel it; Kuroro just wasn’t sure whether he _liked_ it.

“Introductions by way of music are the truest of their kind, wouldn’t you say?” Tserriednich’s voice was a mirror image of himself: balanced perfect on a tightrope between deep and deeper, a lilt of charm weighing it down. Each syllable was a story that spoke of his Crown and its people, an intimate accent that was left flawless and unchanged.

_How vain._

Kurapika was a man who’d bent backward to lose his Kurtan tongue, tried to melt the essence of his people from himself just to sound a little more common, a little negligible. Kuroro acted in similar vein; he’d spent years masking his words, feeding the desire to release Meteor City from his tongue and the hold it had on him. And Kuroro took pride in that success, too.

His accent never waved, never surfaced—and the longer lasting the lie, the closer to the truth it became. _If a tree fell in a silent forest, would it make a sound?_ If there was no one alive who remembered the highs and lows of his flawed tongue, Kuroro was set to believe the accent never existed at all. Negotiating reality was a simple game to play.

Tserriednich, it seemed, was a different man.

He wore his heritage and he spoke it, braced it on the broken back of luxury unfounded. If the slant of his smile was much to go by, he took pride in every intonation, every intent of incorrectness— _which means,_ Kuroro graced him with a quick once over, _he’s proud of so much more._ Arrogance became him, and Kuroro wasn’t sure which part of Tserriednich spoke of it loudest: the debonair amusement, the stress-clear skin or the sheer steel in his spine and step.

_You’re a loud, loud man._

Tucking an elbow, Tserriednich reached to hand Kuroro a tusk-white handkerchief without removing the other from Kurapika’s back. Swiping it with a graceful pinch, Kuroro spent little time appreciating the craftsmanship. Everything in Kakin reeked, and maybe it was his terrible mood, but Kuroro was growing bored at paces unparalleled.

“Naturally,” he intoned, not wiping the blood. He didn’t turn to look at the _nen_ beast, even when it demanded too much room and too much attention. Kurapika was just as stiff, loyal to appearances. They weren’t supposed to know _nen,_ or at the very least Kuroro wasn’t. Pianists and killers valued very, very different instruments. “Music has a way about it.”

 _So do bad men,_ and Kuroro was good at recognizing both.

With a pleasant smile, Tserriednich turned to Kurapika. “If you’ll excuse us.”

Kurapika hesitated, the promise of violence—by way of tongue or chain—hovering between them. Against his better, more brutal judgment— _his only judgment,_ Kuroro wanted to scoff at the mental correction—Kurapika fell back from Tserriednich’s touch. Hostility cleared from his expression, and he domesticated displeasure into indifference. Glancing between them, his eyes lingered on Kuroro’s.

_I’m not going to suggest you stay, cherry bomb._

Kurapika’s mouth rolled.

He took two backward steps before pirouetting on his heel and storming off with impressive equilibrium. As soon as he was halfway across the ballroom, Kuroro flicked the card onto the piano and clutched onto the handkerchief tighter, fist bleeding. He wouldn’t be the first to speak, he wouldn’t decide where the conversation would go. The basics to chivalry said so. As luck would have it, those happened to be the basics of manipulation and dishonesty as well.

_Can’t fuck with you if I don’t know how your mind works, your highness._

Tserriednich, quick on the uptake, smoothed eyes over to the card. “You’re fond of card games?”

“Solitaire,” Kuroro hummed, more sarcastic than he tended to be in these situations. Thumb brushing up against silk, he watched his blood bloom. It was unsettling how easy the sight was to take in; a result of bleeding too much over the past handful of weeks, he guessed.

Tserriednich nodded, a long show that was more courtesy than it was understanding. “Ah, a game for the lonely charismatic.”

“Venture you enjoy it as well?” Kuroro regained his footing and his charm with a pleasant drawl.

Tserriednich cocked his head, smile in place. “I prefer Old Maid, personally.”

Kuroro appraised him with a simple look that was cordial on the outside and no such thing on the inside. _Ready to shun a Queen or two, prince?_ Kuroro sung a laugh, genial to most, dangerous to those with the ear to catch it. “Excellent pick. Though, where I come from—” he met Tserriednich’s eyes past low hanging lashes “—we play by nixing Kings.”

The spades of Tserriednich’s smile thinned and sharpened. Malicious amusement was something Kuroro knew well enough to recognize from the get-go, though he couldn’t find it in himself to fear it, volatile as Tserriednich appeared to be. With a sigh and a graceful drop, he sat next to Kuroro on the piano bench. “Ah, and where _do_ you come from?”

“Is that relevant?”

“Perhaps not,” he mused, casting a look over to Kurapika who was standing by his queen, focus off. “What about him?”

Kuroro doesn’t hesitate. “I wouldn’t know.”

There was no transparent reason for asking, nothing innocent or pleasant, even if the words were canvased in a handsome purr. Kuroro never spoke of his past, not for fear or shame of it, but because more often than not history had a louder mouth than his; Meteor City had written itself into Kuroro in the most intimate ways, for all to see. Its forms were many—religious inversion, bodies turned bookshelves, his throat left bare before the world. Tserriednich must have seen the superficialities, skimmed the bitter of his exhale and drew conclusions.

_Good for him._

And he’d done the same for Kurapika, who tried too hard to hide; _that makes it easier to notice, my dear_.

“See,” Tserriednich breathed a chuckle, blond hair drawing closer to his jaw when he dipped his head. It was the color of wheat, a natural beige that was unfitting on someone so contrived. _Then again,_ Kuroro hitched a brow, _Illumi is onyx-everything._ “I don’t believe that.”

Kuroro laughed, less low and more shallow, eyes fluttering. “Ah, now that’s no good. My first impressions need some work.”

“I don’t believe that, either.” Tserriednich’s smile didn’t fade. Kuroro stayed quiet, their eyes held and their mutual amusement sinister. _Try me, I’ve got the lungs to wait._ He used silence to kill the conversation and Tserriednich let him do it, threading his fingers over the piano edge, rings clicking. The way he tossed a look over to the side, landing it on Kurapika once more, told Kuroro it was an intentional taunt. “You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t particularly enjoy him. Rather, I don’t like him very much at all.”

Kuroro’s charm remained as his mind became dyed with the color of calculation, guard rising. _Does he know Kurapika?—_ he blinked, slow— _worse, does he know we’re planning on—_ “Oh?”

Tserriednich hummed, thoughtful. “He has a look about him. Lean and hungry, thinks too much.”

 _‘Such men are dangerous’_ Kuroro’s thoughts supplied, eyes tracing the sober narrow of Kurapika’s profile. The citation leaves him before he could rationalize its connotations, _“Julius Caesar.”_

“My, my,” Tserriednich turned back to him; he didn’t look or sound surprised, mouth twisted with knowing. “A versed pianist and a well-read scholar. You’re simply brimming with surprises.”

Kuroro’s jaw strained under his smile, and if Tserriednich saw the roll of his jaw, he didn’t comment. Leaning their bodies closer, he reached to take Kuroro’s hand in his. The difference was jarring, world-worn skin versus the softness of pure-bred leisure, blood versus scarless porcelain. Tserriednich cocked a head, running a thumb against the pads of Kuroro’s fingers, taking the handkerchief to help dab at blood. The show of care lasted about as long as it took to turn Kuroro’s palm over.

 _Ah,_ Kuroro wanted to tear his throat out. _That’s what you’re doing._

With the gentlest motion—cruel and seasoned in said cruelty—Tserriednich pressed two thumbs upward along the back of Kuroro’s hand, past healing knuckles and a faded _Moon_ tattoo. The gesture was deliberate, meant to make a statement. No pianist carried around scars like these, tattoos which sounded of aura when touched. Paired Destruction had been a dicey hand to play; once the mark was set, it stayed—darkening in use and lightening when idle. Kuroro understood the dangers of carrying around damning evidence of _nen,_ though it was easier to hide amongst those who knew very little.

 _Kurapika’s right,_ Kuroro drove a tongue into his gums, _he’s learning._

Tserriednich’s languid gaze found his. “I find men like you hard to trust.”

_Fast._

Kuroro took his hand back with an urbane smile. “What an unpleasant thing to say.”

“You’ll come to realize,” Tserriednich leaned in, impossibly close, impossibly handsome, to remind Kuroro of how dangerous men with pretty faces were. The implicit type of danger, not so much a burning cigarette to the throat, more an ornate dagger to thigh back— _major vein, lots of blood, classy theatrical kill._ Kuroro knew better than to trust pretty faces, learned that from sharing his own company.

Tserriednich breathed the words right into the shell of his ear, and Kuroro’s smile dissolved. “I never forget the pianists I hire, they cater to my tastes best.”

Oh, mother _fucker._

Kuroro’s face tore down into straight lines. Kurapika’s schedule had included act descriptions, names and faces. It gave no indication of how artists were paid, and worse still, who might’ve played their patron for the night. Not knowing changed very little, _but fate really does have a leg stretched to catch my ankle at all times, doesn’t she?_ In hindsight, he should’ve manifested his aura into divination rather than theft, _this is ridiculous._ The night he chose to act, and the act he decided to hijack, were pocketed by the man in for Kuroro’s reckoning.

_But I’ll bite._

“Ouch,” Kuroro purred in time for Tserriednich to pull away, clawing for footing past incense and blue eyes, his mask webbing just short of shatter. “I’m hurt, was my playing not to your liking?”

“Hardly,” Tserriednich’s eyes wrinkled when he chuckled, a visible courtesy. “I’d say you’re far more skilled than he ever was—” when he paused, Kuroro knew it was all for effect and none for thought “—I just hope you haven’t hurt him too badly. I’m fond of that man, talented gentleman.”

Kuroro turned back to the piano, faux thoughtfulness breaking the sharp edges of his profile into something sweeter. He tilted the top down onto the keyboard; his hands moved in a steady rhythm, not giving away his tundra of annoyance. Cold, brittle and ready to snap under the right comment. There were very few things that managed to put a tick in Kuroro’s brow and a notch in his mood. Perceptive men tended to do the trick—under the right circumstances Kuroro was fond of them. Under the right circumstances, also, they edged him into darker places.

Kuroro kept a gentle smile on him, laying his hands over the closed keyboard before canting his head back to Tserriednich. The bite of pain in his palm was long from forgotten, but Kuroro made it a point to look him in the eye without any semblance of vulnerability. Blood smeared across the white hood. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“I’m certain you do.”

Kuroro stared, smile carved permanent.

When the silence spoke louder than he did, Tserriednich took the hint. He leaned back on his arms, hands clutching the back of the bench, ankles locking. It was such a casual, nonchalant show of superiority that had Kuroro’s eyes narrowing. _If you know I’m not who I say I am,_ Kuroro watched him stare at the ceiling, _if you’re thinking I’m a killer—why aren’t you high tailing for the hills?_

That realization spoke louder than anything Kuroro had deduced about him so far. He made a mental note to ask Kurapika just what lawsuits Tserriednich was caught up in; white-collar crime didn’t wear wicked as well as Tserriednich wore it. Malice rolled off him like hookah smoke, too gracefully and far too overpowering.

Tserriednich hummed, blasé. “Care to give me a name?”

 _How condescending._ “If you’ll remember it.”

For the first time, the prince’s smile had teeth as he offered his hand, balancing his weight on a single arm. “Tserriednich.”

Taking it, Kuroro’s expression fell opposite on the spectrum: tight and closed off. His eyes were stone and his smile wasn’t soft, and even when he shook the hand with his left, the grip he left on Tserriednich’s knuckles was enough to vocalize a point etiquette wouldn’t allow for. “Kuroro.”

“Ah, just ‘Kuroro’?”

“Kuroro,” he repeated, head cocking and eyes falling into colder mercury. “Lucifer.”

Tserriednich’s gaze rounded and his head—once tilted upward— dropped to line up with Kuroro’s own, excited and winded. “What a sinister name.”

Kuroro said nothing, not even to the sound of Tserriednich’s breathy laughter. There was a difference, he realized, between using laughter to replace a sentence—and to punctuate it. A difference so stark it fell on either end of the spectrum of amusement, from histrionic to wholesome. The swift line of hair and jaw and teeth told Kuroro all he needed to know about _this_ laugh. A laugh that rose and fell at the end of a point made.

“I’ll be seeing you, I’m sure. After all,” getting up, Tserriednich lowered his head. He lingered a last look to Kurapika, brief enough not to matter, long enough to make certain it was caught. _That’s typi—_ “it’s hard chasing affection from a man so starved of it”— _cal._

Kuroro’s composure fractured.

His expression flashed an economy of shock he couldn’t quite reign in, mind blinking even when his eyes rounded with disbelief. There was no use for forged smiles where they weren’t useful; Kuroro’s voice was hollow. “I beg your pardon?”

“He’s just so _angry,_ ” Tserriednich said, like it was a joke, like the furious bend of Kurapika’s will was nothing but an overdue tantrum. He turned back to Kuroro, his cruelty mistaken for charm, his smile weak and deliberate. “I’ll bet he drinks whiskey neat, too. I do have to wish you luck—though, word to the wise?” he let the words sauté before complementing them with a point, “Your eyes are far too honest; with such a phenomenal liar’s smile, I’d spend some time fine-tuning their edges.”

Unlike shock, the choice to drop his facade was a conscious one. Kuroro allowed his face to harden into the lines of antipathy, mouth full and eyes fuller, brows tilting higher at the ends. He didn’t need to see his own reflection to know the merciless stillness he carried. _I don’t like you._

_I don’t like you at all._

“Cheers,” Tserriednich was breathless, his inhale sharp through the nose and exhale loosening past his teeth. “Now _that’s_ a face worthy of a name like yours.”

Back straight with poise and wealth and an intelligence Kuroro wanted to syringe straight from his marrow, Tserriednich walked away.

And in that same beat, Kuroro’s throat closed.

//

He needed a break.

A break, maybe a drink, too. Either way, the second Kuroro was given enough room to breathe, he got up from the piano and walked backstage with as much grace as he could manage. Anger be damned, it was exhaustion that dominated; Tserriednich was _exhausting._ Not unlike the way Kurapika was—they both managed to drain Kuroro of any semblance of peace, it was a wonder he’d only known both for a handful of minutes and hours, respectively.

 _Still,_ that didn’t change the tighten of his chest. The man had been spot on with all his spoken and unspoken assumptions. He’d seen through the handmade mask Kuroro had spend decades painting to perfection, saw through the poise Kurapika had drilled into himself by virtue of necessity. It was humbling, Kuroro decided, in the worst ways. In the most terrifying ways.

He wondered, if only for the second it took him to push out of the backstage door and straight into a hall, if that was what others felt when dealing with him. Kuroro was nowhere near as transparent with his vanity or his violence, but the energies around them both were emphatic in their similarities. There was no denying the same drill of malice Tserriednich carried around, the amusement he felt at seeing Kuroro’s facade fall to bits.

With or without his own will, Kuroro had been forced to drop the act.

Something he’d never been cornered into doing— _ever._

Tongue pressing against his cheek, he made his way down the corridor to where he knew the bathrooms to be. Water to the face might do the trick, so would a minute away from the crowd. There was no use staying in a place where he risked acting out. Kuroro didn’t understand how Hisoka found this enjoyable—sparring with someone so blatantly dangerous, and in doing so, risking everything. Nothing said sexy like a challenge. But nothing was sexier than staying in one piece.

 _Good fucking_ goddess _._

Distracted, Kuroro didn’t see the hand shoot out to wrap around his wrist, pulling him off sideways into the narrow cove of another hallway. It took him a blink to recognize the _nen_ and two to recognize the curl of Kurapika’s lashes. _Ah,_ his mood swayed, feeling somewhat lighter despite the serious fall of Kurapika’s mouth. _We can’t keep meeting like this, my dear._

“What did he want?”

_Always so direct._

“Well, hello to you too.” Kuroro blinked, startled.

“Get with it,” Kurapika snapped, vehement urgency riding in his voice. “What did he say?”

“Nothing interesting,” Kuroro lied, watching Kurapika’s eyes cross back and forth between his own. Distraction kept him from noticing their proximity, and how close Kuroro hovered above him. When he felt Kurapika’s breath brush up against the pit of his neck, the softness of a full chest made itself known to Kuroro again. He couldn’t find it in him to mind the feeling; there was a lack of the whip-sting-simmer it carried weeks before. “He was just being morbid.”

Kuroro had experience with men like that.

Kurapika glared. Looking at him then and there, so composed in comparison to the vulgar image Kuroro had in his mind, had his gut tightening. Kuroro did his best to keep his thoughts at bay; _you’d kill me, if you knew the things I picture doing to you._ If anything, though, he’d practiced the art of talking refined—of veiling the depth of his depravity with pretty smiles or stoicism. This was no different.

Kurapika kissed his teeth. “You were talking for a while, you’re telling me he had nothing useful come out of him?”

Eyes lidding, Kuroro let his mouth curve with annoyance. He spoke it more to himself than Kurapika, “Now I don’t know about _useful._ ”

“Out with it,” Kurapika insisted, giving his shoulder a soft shove.

Kuroro was quiet for a moment, trying to find the words that best described the monster of a man he’d just met. “He’s—perceptive.”

Kurapika rolled his eyes, looking off in exasperation. “Yes, we already knew that _—_ ”

“No,” Kuroro cut him off with as much solemnity as he could muster, angling Kurapika’s face back to his with a bleeding finger to the jaw. Even within the context, he was surprised the man let him. “Viciously perceptive. It’s information, for sure, but I wouldn’t be so quick to call it useful.”

Kurapika swallowed, determination still there even when his confidence waived. “That’s not to our favor.”

“Not ‘our’,” Kuroro ignored him. “I want you to stay out of this.”

Kurapika took a physical step back, as far as the narrow hall allowed for. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t pull some stupid stunt,” Kuroro continued, voice drawing more and more demanding with each word. “You’re not to face this guy at any point in time alone or otherwise, even if it costs you the Eyes.”

Kurapika’s gaze narrowed, sharper than shrapnel. “What asinine bullshit are you smoking?”

“Exactly that.” Kuroro closed the step Kurapika put between them, using his height as a resource for intimidation. “You’re not to be reckless, you’re not to act at all.”

“The whole point is getting the Eyes back, if it comes down to it—”

“—if it comes down to it, you won’t be earning Kurtan tokens,” Kuroro clipped. “You’ll be earning yourself a spot on his wall as one.”

Kurapika was silent in the open mouth of trauma, the mercury in Kuroro’s eyes putting a premature end to his scoff. “I’ve faced you,” it was quiet, saturated with frustration. “I’m still here.”

Kuroro fought the _no you haven’t._ “This is different.”

Kurapika looked at him for traces of a lie. “You’re saying he’s stronger than you?”

“No,” Kuroro snapped, but against his rioting pride, continued. “Not yet, anyway. I’ve never met a man who worries me like he does.”

“There’s Hisoka.”

Kuroro clicked his tongue. “Hisoka’s actions put me off, not his existence.”

That has Kurapika’s eyes dropping, a focused expression flashing in place of his annoyance. His eyes find Kuroro’s again after a long moment. “I’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish my goal, whether you like it or not.”

“No,” Kuroro couldn’t help the strident way it left him. “You will do as our agreement—” he made a point to tap at Kurapika’s chest, hand wrapped into Tserriednich’s handkerchief still, “stipulates, and nothing else.”

“Don’t fucking delegate my tasks,” Kurapika hissed up at him, “I won’t be some wallflower informant—”

“Yes, you will,” Kuroro countered, cold. “That’s what we agreed to. Lives spared, remember?”

Kurapika licked his teeth, desperation knitting his brows. “Not _mine_. I was to be a part of this.”

“A part of planning it,” Kuroro argued, leaning in until he caught the scent of amber on Kurapika’s throat, “that’s all she wrote.”

“If you’ve got no intention of getting me the Eyes, you better fucking say so now,” Kurapika looked livid, mouth open with panting, face warm with color. The shadow of sting threatened Kuroro’s lungs, fading as fast as it had come when Kurapika’s voice dropped to scrape its last octave. “You can’t tell me not to die for my people when you were willing to do the same for yours.”

“Mine,” voice like marble, Kuroro shot him down “aren’t _dead_.”

_For now._

Kurapika’s backhand sounded blue up Kuroro’s temple and down his throat, lip splitting down center.

_“And whose godforsaken fault is that?”_

Hiss, hurt, heat—all thrown at him from behind clenched teeth. The impact of Kurapika’s knuckles had been powerful enough to loosen a molar, flooding his mouth with blood. Kuroro spat, made no move to wipe the excess dripping from lip to chin to moquette. A punch to the face would’ve been less jarring than a slap; there were few things more humbling than a backhand, few more declarative of emotion.

Kuroro’s eyes were rock when they slid to their corners, round and unblinking as they absorbed Kurapika’s emotional upheaval—mouth reddened with rage, brows indecisive in their hover, eyes torn between black and darker. There was realization there, too. Kuroro’s guard had never taken a dive this steep, ever— _not_ _until this moment._ He’d been too preoccupied to realize how easily he’d given in to trust, to Kurapika’s promises of cash and coin and vengeance.

_And love._

_I don’t—_

Brimming with disbelief and the seed of realization, Kuroro turned his angled head back to Kurapika. “You want to die.”

Any trace of anger washed off Kurapika’s face and his shock was the only epitaph left for it. When he spoke, his voice was caged. “What?”

“You,” Kuroro continued with rising understanding. “You want to die. It isn’t about just burying your people—it’s about digging yourself a place right next to them.”

_It’s about coming home._

“Be quiet,” Kurapika demanded, no heat in his voice, just breath. “You don’t know jack about what you’re saying.”

“I know enough to recognize a gravedigger with one foot in his own,” Kuroro frowned, shaking his head. “You told me burials were meant to inspire life.”

Kurapika was quick with his response; he took comfort in a familiar argument, it seemed. “Don’t preach like you know my people—”

“I don’t,” Kuroro licked the blood from his lip, “but for a second, I thought _you_ did.”

Kurapika couldn’t hide his wince, even when Kuroro saw him try.

“I want you to remember this,” Kuroro’s words were ruthless mercy, gentle enough to hurt. He lowered his voice, made sure not even gods could hear him if they tried. “If Kurtan heritage becomes a thing to mourn—if it ends when this Whale sinks, when you find a way to land yourself under someone else’s knife—know that you won’t be able to blame me for that. I won’t be the man who wiped out the Kurta.”

_You will._

_And you will lose the only comfort saving you from your guilt._

“You made it so I had nothing left,” Kurapika didn’t sound broken. His voice didn’t dip or shatter, and instead evened itself across indifference. And maybe it was that lack of tone which told them both he was a hair’s breadth from it, _from breaking._

“I am not your god.” Kuroro mirrored the lifelessness, no atonement for either of them in his voice. “Don’t allow my actions to dictate how you live your life, or if you live it at all. Stop worshipping me with your rage.”

“You wish,” Kurapika’s breathing stuttered as he tried to hold it in his throat, keep it from coming out in a rush of syllables that was more air than substance, more emotion than element. “You wish I worshiped you.”

“With all the parts of yourself you spend on me,” _hating me,_ “I’d say those were monument enough.”

Kurapika fell victim to his own silence, and even the muted sound of ballroom chatter felt worlds away from the present moment. Kuroro had weighed the statement on prayer rather than promise, a reverence he’d saved for moments like these—cast in the shadow of someone so tragic, prosaic in life and action and thought. And Kurapika wasn’t wrong; _nothing in this world would be more satisfying,_ Kuroro watched relent fold onto features unforgiving, _than being worshipped by you._

Kuroro’s arrogance would bask in it.

But Kuroro was arrogant enough to know the difference between worship and devotion, and the way Kurapika looked at him in that moment—mouth full of silence and too many unspoken words—felt nothing like being deified. Or maybe it did; most gods were foul, hated creatures. They were built for the sole purpose of inspiring fear, intolerance. Every doctrine was a manifesto of homegrown terror _—_

_Don’t make me a god._

_Not yours._

Unable to stand the silence for longer than he had to, Kuroro took Kurapika’s palm, placed it against the vulnerable rise of his throat. Kurapika didn’t fight him when he held it under his. “I’m human—humans are easier to punish,” _easier to love, too._ “Remember this, and let it console you.”

Letting his good hand fall, Kuroro allowed Kurapika to decide where his own lingered. It stayed on his throat, fingerpads roughened and worked, wired with _nen._ At that moment, it was a mutual thought—Kuroro knew, because he saw it in his eyes: _I could kill you._ Their guards were kissing dust, and neither of them had the energy to refortify them with passion or emotion. _Exhausting,_ this was exhausting.

Kurapika’s fingers strayed, lingering by the hollow under his jaw, tracing the rhythmic pulse. It would’ve been an easy kill, child’s play. Realizing he would do nothing to stop it chased Kuroro’s wits straight out of him. Kurapika licked the outer corner of his lips, and that was all it took for Kuroro’s dreams to flash thunderous at the forefront of his mind once more.

 _A fragile line is holding your senses together—_ Kuroro swallowed— _and I think it’s about to break._

Finally, Kurapika breathed and his touch fell. “I have nothing.”

“But your life,” Kuroro hummed, fighting the urge to put the hand back. “And that’s more than your people can boast. Honor that.”

“Honor,” Kurapika mused and although it sounded soulless, when he looked up at Kuroro there was something intangible buried under lens that he couldn’t quite make out. “If you know anything about it, you’ll honor your word as well.”

Kuroro frowned, “My word?”

“You’ll wait to die by my hand,” Kurapika sounded breathless, vigor relit in his eyes. Kuroro’s chest warmed, and it was delusion at its finest— _I’m doing greed’s bidding and serving my own lust—_ when he decided the words sounded a lot like _don’t die._

With a gentle chuckle and a dropped head, Kuroro looked up at Kurapika through his lashes. “Never planned on anything else, my love.”

“Don’t drown yourself, Narcissus.” Kurapika still looked desolate when he rolls his eyes, but Kuroro enjoyed the show of it; only Kurapika would find a way to tell him to be humble and not die in the same breath. The architecture of tension stayed between them until Kurapika shuffled, clearing his throat. “I asked about Hisoka.”

Before Kuroro could speak, mouth prompted open, Kurapika continued. “I didn’t use names. I didn’t want to give it away.”

“Smart,” Kuroro praised, brow raised and curiosity dialed up. “And?”

Kurapika hesitated, eyes bouncing back and forth between Kuroro’s. “You said Illumi Zoldyck—” he sounded the name like he wasn’t sure he was saying it right, “—and Hisoka tend to go hand in hand, right?”

“For the most part,” Kuroro’s gaze narrowed, mind sharpening at the mention. It was one thing to assume Illumi had an in with Hisoka, another to have potential evidence which supported it. “Did something come up?”

Solemn, Kurapika sighed. If Kuroro didn’t know any better, he’d say the process of helping was getting to Kurapika’s conscience. But he did know better, and it wasn’t a surprise when Kurapika bit his lips inward and continued. “There are two suites booked under the name Zoldyck, Tier III.”

“Doesn’t help,” Kuroro dismissed, “there are two Zoldycks on this ship, as far as I’m aware.”

Kurapika was quiet, and when he decided to speak, it was half a pitch lower. “One wasn’t checked into.”

Kuroro blinked, mind drawing to a halt. He couldn’t imagine Zoldycks sharing a space when they had the means not to. They weren’t frugal and they certainly weren’t economic _._ A mansion on a mountain wasn’t cheap rent— _then why?_ Staring back at Kurapika, Kuroro sounded cold to even himself. “You have the numbers?”

Kurapika’s nod was stiff. “Forty-two, forty-four.”

He cataloged the information. “Thank you.”

Kurapika gave him another hesitant nod, looking off to the side. Kuroro followed his gaze, and it took a moment to realize what he was looking at. Off in the distance, hovering by the hall’s entrance, Oito cradled a sobbing Woble, her mouth moving in a soundless lullaby. Her hair had been put up, the curling tips of a ponytail rung against her upper back. An effortless charm was nailed into the crane of her neck, the tilt of her hip and smile.

_Beautiful._

Kuroro’s mouth hovered open before clicking closed. “She’s arresting.”

“Most mothers are.” Kurapika's voice was as far off as the adoration on his face. When Kuroro looked back at him, he was caught up staring. Kurapika’s personality was a constellation of anger and apathy and calculation; he was an individual built for all the elegant forms of self-destruction. Kuroro had seen him wear each state of mind, his features more honest than his words.

Fondness wasn’t familiar.

Fondness was new, calmness was new and Kuroro decided he enjoyed it just as much as passion. Without a conscious desire to do so, his eyes hung their weight on Kurapika’s lips.

“I—should go,” Kurapika swallowed, melancholy replacing peace of mind as he stared at Oito.

“Yeah,” Kuroro was hoarse. “Yeah, okay.”

Turning to him, Kurapika took two rhythmic steps back, mouth a tight parody of a smile which was far too straight-lined to be one. It takes a beat too long, but Kuroro was left standing in a narrow corridor, back braced against the wall. His eyes slid shut. Kurapika didn’t promise anything, and although the potential of him acting on his own should’ve rung sirens in Kuroro’s mind, the only thought Kuroro had was of how easy it would’ve been to grab him by the throat for a kiss.

 _“Fuck._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **mount of venus** : _an indicator of love, romance, passion, sensuality, the lovers one chooses and physical appearance._
> 
> enter: tserriednich. i actually had a blast writing this guy lmao don't blacklist me please i have a family to feed with this fic
> 
> as always, please let me know what you liked/didn't! 11k monster chappies need insane amounts motivation & you guys always manage to cheer me up 🔥
> 
> hop into my clown car kids [@itsillumi](https://itsillumi.tumblr.com/)


	6. act vi. lifeline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i listen to _spectacular rival_ by george ezra on repeat while writing this? damn straight i did lmao 
> 
> for those into curated tomfoolery, find the circus [@itsillumi](https://itsillumi.tumblr.com/)
> 
> let me know if you find an oopsie as always

Sleep didn’t come.

Kurapika’s mouth stained his thoughts, its chance passing him by. Kuroro’s inner opportunist clawed at his gut, punishing him for docility; it wasn’t like him to skip on a chance for lack of courage—or worse, lack of certainty. The ache and itch of it were irritating enough to urge him out of bed, hair greased with how much he’d shuffled a hand through it. There was no need for mirrors to know what insomnia looked like: concave shoulders and angry eyes.

Distraction was a welcomed vice, and he used it to get him out of the cabin and far from the persistent bruising of his thoughts. His overthinking. Tucking his palms into the leather coat, Kuroro pressed his chin low into the collar, mouth and nose brushing up against the rim. He’d forfeit the leather greatcoat in favor of an Aztec sherpa he’d snatched off a sleeping man, his head carelessly wrapped. It would have to make for a disguise for the time being; he’d paraded with his St. Peter’s cross one too many times. The longer the night, the tighter the risk.

And like most nights, it was warm and silent on the Fifth. The powerful sound of drunk men was diluted by distance, and Kuroro was in no rush to make his way to the mess hall. If anything, he walked himself in the opposite direction, fingers folding the corners of the book page he’d placed in his new pocket. He hadn’t looked at it since tearing it out of the tome, and it felt like years rather than months since he’d tailed out of the Kakin _bibliotheque_. Years since he got to know the scent of amber and anger streaked across Kurapika’s wrists.

 _Then again,_ Kuroro took a corner, slipping onto a staircase, _even that’s a little faded._ It was strange to think proximity did them both filthy; Kuroro’s palms warmed at the thought, the coil of iron on his heart seeming to tighten. He may not have known what love felt like—not past the histrionic poetry he was prone to reading, the exaggerations of sex and sense and gore—but something told him this was a dangerous game to play with himself. Kuroro wasn’t stupid. For a man who prided himself on name and self-awareness, he elected to ignore the train of thought.

 _This will get me nowhere,_ he took two steps at a time, body jolting with soundless precision. Instead, he chose to think of Kurapika’s state of mind, the softening of his voice and his unlit blinks. Kuroro never claimed he knew how to read men, though when it came to— _you_ —he found himself slaving away to hope. But there was no way of knowing for sure what orbited Kurapika’s thoughts.

Kuroro didn’t try to unpack them.

It took two blows of _nen_ and a body to make his way to the Third. The room numbers Kurapika had given him were singed into memory, _44_ and _42_ tattooed gothic at the forefront of his mind. _If I can’t sleep,_ he walked over the still body of a guard, _I’ll make better use of my insomnia._ Suffocating is what the tier felt like, the thick sway of _nen_ was recognizable from a distance; there were no two ways about it, _Zoldyck_ was written all over this place. Kuroro would recognize that damn brand anywhere.

Despite the stark difference in theirsignatures, Zoldycks were streaked with continual power. No attempt at _zetsu_ could completely mask their presence. Kuroro wasn't sure whether this was their arrogance at play— _‘doesn’t matter if you see me coming, I’ll bury you anyway’_ —or the sheer magnitude of power making control impossible. Kuroro didn’t care, either. It made his job of finding Illumi easier.

Or in this case, Kalluto.

Kuroro’s eyes slit. The carpeted walls were a grey-beige, warm with the smell of chemical detergent. Kalluto’s energy, Kuroro decided, was an immature version of his brother’s: unapologetic, dense, and still notably less malicious. It was fragrant in the only way aura could be, colored and gentle, a pleasantness to it that would’ve convinced a weaker man to _harakiri._ Fatal seduction of a practiced sort.

 _My,_ Kuroro’s mouth sharpened its edges into spades of dangerous satisfaction, _such vicious energy from someone so young._ A rush of adrenaline flooded him; _ah,_ to have Zoldyck’s absolute devotion. Corrupting Kalluto’s loyalty, making it his, was the grandest _sit and spin_ he could gift Silva and Illumi. A gift, he decided, worth whatever price circumstance put on it. _I’ll keep you breathing, Illumi, you foul fuck—_ Kuroro stood at the neck of an open corridor, the number thirty-four on one side, and thirty-five on the other, the smile on his face folding into nothing— _if only to watch the name Zoldyck stripped of all imperiousness._

_I'll cut you down._

His strides slowed with deliberate silence. Kuroro savored the siphoning _nen_ in his veins, feeling it roll up against their inner hollow. Discipline kept him from opening his aura’s floodgates, but it wasn’t strong enough to keep the tension from his shoulders. Kuroro wasn’t above confrontation, even if it wasn’t his first instinct. _If Kurapika’s right,_ his jaw ground, _then_ —

Then Hisoka may very well be near.

An impromptu fight wasn't inconceivable. 

_Then one of us'll be tossed into the ocean._

Doors filmed past his periphery, the corridor narrowing as his focus continued to center. Kuroro’s mind counted the frames, the numbers, white doors bare of anything but newly painted plaster and sans-serif numerics. With a sharp twist of the heel, Kuroro spun to a stop. The threshold of both doors brushed the iron toe of his boots, a hair's breadth away from touching. He stood between them, the press of fabric between the doors was where he kept his eyes.

He had one chance to get this right.

A sphinx sat in his mind, eyes flicking from center to left— _44_ —to right— _42._ Kalluto’s _nen_ spun out from behind both doors, too overwhelming to sit caged in one room. Kuroro’s brow ticked; he reached out a hand, finger pads brushing one panel. Electricity coursed through his palm, strong enough to have his wrist ache but not powerful enough to remove his hand. Glancing up, Kuroro locked eyes onto the gold number.

_42._

_Hello, boys._

He dropped his hand, taking a step back. Curiosity got the better of him, a need to explore overcoming the need to confront. With a slow gaze, Kuroro focused on the next door. Just as polished, and doubly untouched, the number forty-four sat nailed onto the wooden panel. There was a sweet, almost gentle bitterness to the number; the _mort_ suited Hisoka far too well. Without testing for _nen,_ Kuroro’s movements were unforgiving.

He threw the door open to the scent of rot.

The blood came first—a portrait of death smeared across an empty room, smelling days old and looking twice that number. Red had long since shed vibrancy, falling into brown holiness which spoke of age and cruelty. Kuroro’s mouth parted, eyes flying to circle the suite, his once unhesitating heart picking up into a rush. Center the room—and to the soundless drop of his guts—a small pedestal stood. A makeshift thing propped tall with dismantled slabs of furniture, its crowning piece a severed head.

_Shalnark._

Kuroro lost his tongue to tragedy.

Blond hair was matted down and strung thick with clots of blood, the nose disfigured from breaks to both bridge and upturned cartilage. The eyes were swimming in white, once crystal blue clouded over with uneven arrangements of fog. Kuroro’s stomach hardened, untempered heartache blowing open his chest. The jaw hung sideways, dislocated, and it was through it that Kuroro caught sight of the spike shooting up from throat-root to hair.

And atop the steep pyramid—where the spike broke through skull—a playing card was nailed in place.

_Six of Spades._

Kuroro’s body sagged in disbelief, knees meeting the blood-soaked moquette with a _thump_ as dull and loud as the pace his heart kept.

_This is my doing._

_And this is my undoing._

The white-scars of Pakunoda and Uvo’s death were torn open and drained, the angry burst of skin a violent purple in his mind, a dread that ruined him. Hisoka _ruined_ him, took all Kuroro held in high esteem and rolled it out, massacred, on a plate of silver. Because Hisoka knew how death tasted, knew the saltwater ink that never washed out from beneath nails—and Kuroro was his executioner. Kuroro had dealt him that— _this—_ fate in Heaven’s Arena.

And maybe that was it—that was how he buried his own men with bare hands, forgetting the soft kindness they'd always offered him. _Everything weak,_ his face fell expressionless, eyes unable to stray from the asymmetric tilt of Shalnark’s once boyish features; the innocence had died somewhere in between his death and his dismemberment. _Everything weak—_

 _Everything weak_ — _dies caged._

It was only when he realized he hadn’t been breathing, did Kuroro swallow the smell of rot again. And in moving—neck craned, sob choked—he caught the glimmer of flat gold at Shalnark’s temple.

Kuroro’s eyes flashed.

_Gold?_

Gold.

He rose to his feet, resting his weight predatorily on both heels. Right at the dip of Shalnark’s brow, the perfect round of a flat head coin sat, bruising the decomposing skin. Kuroro’s grief left his body like blood from an open wound, breath a monopoly of quiet. There were few things he knew as gospel: never aim a gun at an open casket, never steal from a despot until the coup, and never trust gold where it was not meant to be.

Kuroro’s eyes sharpened, the break of calculation craning his neck to get a better look. The skin had turned trench-deep blue, the gold rim far too polished to have been placed during the killing. Too clean to have been the cause of death. Kuroro’s fingers didn’t hesitate when they reached for it, though they did so with patience. Propping his nails under the edge, he pulled.

And the architecture of Shalnark’s features collapsed.

The nose buckled in length, brows drawing higher, blond staining black—and suddenly, the face of a man Kuroro would’ve once died for, was replaced with that of a stranger. When the contortions settled, Kuroro looked down at the weight of a needle in his palm.

 _Son of a_ bitch.

//

Kuroro forgot everything he knew about strength. His mind didn’t run, his body didn’t sweat its tension. Instead, he stared down at the needle with brisk dismissal; _so this is how it is,_ Kuroro cocked his head. _What else did I expect?_ From a man who lived for the glamour of games gone wrong. Though Hisoka was hardly the issue now. Kuroro had no doubt he’d killed Shalnark. But as though the fact of knowing wasn’t enough—

 _You’re trying to psych me out,_ Kuroro scraped the needle down his inner wrist, watching the skin dip and bleach. _Morituri the salutant: 'we who are about to die, salute you.'_ From between his glass-tender fingers, Kuroro flung the needle, landing it between the dead man’s brows.

The head toppled backward.

_Sine missione, Zoldyck._

Without release.

_//_

Kuroro walked himself out of the room, closing the door behind him with a gentle click. Nothing in comparison to the neck-breaking slam he dealt room forty-two. His forearm stung with the force it took to elbow the lock clean out of place, the assaulting scent of cherry blossom more rage-inducing than all of Kakin’s incense.

Kalluto’s fan was held an inch from his bridge, a horizontal half-moon that offset the boy’s tense expression and the hostility of his stance. Kalluto was, as Kuroro remembered from weeks—maybe months—a mirror of his older brother. The sculpt of their features, the tightness of their hips, the flexibility of their joints—it was the same architectural danger he’d smelt on Illumi’s words, always. If Silva and Zeno fell on one end of the Zoldyck spectrum—masculine energy which spoke of necessity and boredom—Kalluto and Illumi fell opposite.

Grace and gore and an uncanny appreciation for both at once.

“ _Danchou,”_ Kalluto breathed, his eyebrows rising as testament to his nerves. His stance didn’t change, and Kuroro’s gaze didn’t soften. He expected nothing less than a split-second response time from a Zoldyck, but even this was too fast. _Looks like you sensed me here for a while now,_ Kuroro stared down at him, unblinking.

“Where is your brother?”

Kalluto swallowed. “My brother?”

“Repetition isn’t for the right of mind,” Kuroro didn’t need to look around the room to tell it was empty of Illumi’s disgusting aura. Hell, it was empty of everything save two beds and bare walls. “Where is Illumi Zoldyck?”

“I don’t know.”

“No?” Kuroro hummed, “I find that hard to believe.”

“I don’t.” Kalluto insisted, and it was only when he hadn’t dropped his fan that Kuroro’s patience began to wear gossamer thin. Faster than Kalluto had accounted for, Kuroro snatched his forearm and twisted. The boy let out a gentle sound, the fan trembling.

“I’ll break it.”

“Please don’t.”

The level of composure this child kept was beyond him. Even Kurapika was likely to snap back, to rage or retreat. He’d sooner have Kuroro shatter his wrist than ask him not to. “Where is Illumi?”

“I don’t know.”

Kuroro’s nose twitched.

“I swear,” Kalluto urged out, head hanging, eyes overcast by his fringe. Kuroro would’ve rather seen them, though. Pink reminded him he wasn’t talking to Illumi. If there was any mark of difference between the brothers, it was the transparency of their gaze. “I don’t know, _aniki_ never tells me anything.”

Kuroro didn’t miss beats, even when he knew the answers. “Is he working with Hisoka?”

“I don’t know,” Kalluto looked past his hair up at Kuroro, and if conflict was a tangible thing, Kuroro could peel it off his face. Being caught between the Spider and the Zoldycks was no enviable place to be, and while they all knew where Illumi stood, Kalluto carried promise. _I’ll make you tell me,_ Kuroro loosened his hold on the fragile limb, bone shifting as he did; _I’ll make you love me more than him._

Kuroro drew a gentle smile onto his features, thumb brushing the skin of Kalluto’s arm. “I apologize, that was out of line.”

Kalluto blinked down at the gesture, then up at Kuroro himself. Skilled as he was, Kalluto was still a child; impressionable and transparent. “I—no, _danchou,_ it’s okay.”

“Thank you for bearing with me, Kalluto.” He let his smile widen into one with teeth, while his eyes fell to half-mast. Kuroro dropped his other hand onto Kalluto’s head, patting the silk soft hair. “You’re a wonderful addition, I’m glad you chose to join.”

Kalluto didn’t smile—never did, as far as Kuroro could remember—but there was an openness to his eyes.

“I need a favor for when the time comes, little Kalluto,” he reached into his pocket and placed the re-bloodied needle into Kalluto’s palm, fully aware of the sinister tilt of his features. _When the time comes,_ “Don’t mourn.”

_My move._

//

Kuroro walked through corridors with deep-seated dissatisfaction. There was no way Illumi knew when the corpse would be found, there was no way he could plan his absence. _Unless he’s always absent,_ Kuroro went through the movements of _nen_ tracing, not focusing on where he was going so much as being caught in Kalluto’s wide eyes. Kuroro was sure of it; if Silva was aware of all that was happening, he’d lay a knife to both of his sons. Maybe break Kuroro’s own neck, for emphasis.

_‘Aniki never tells me anything.’_

Kuroro wanted to be less surprised. A part of him, though, remained unsettled; the Zoldycks were a transparent business. Illumi had certainly made it no secret that he was in contact with Hisoka, over the years and on the Whale. If it's inked in contract, they had no shame admitting it. _Then why wouldn’t you tell your own brother,_ Kuroro pressed a tongue up against his canine until it numbed, matching that of his healing lip.

_Unless Kalluto was lying._

Which was less of a surprise. The boy chose to join their ranks, he had autonomy Kuroro couldn’t imagine Illumi practicing, _within the family and within himself._ Yes, Illumi was a rogue puppet but he was a puppet nonetheless. Kuroro had no doubt in his mind that whatever plan the two freaks hatched, Illumi was acting in accordance to his own categorical imperatives: to honor family. _You’d kill your own mother, I know,_ Kuroro’s blood was sweeter this time around, _if she threatens the House’s identity._

Whatever it was he’d planned with Hisoka worked in his favor, regardless of whether it helped Hisoka in the process. Illumi was a master of manipulation, after all, and the strongest minds bore no strength in his company.

_Not even his own._

He must've twisted the story, taught himself how to read actions differently. _You crafted a vendetta against me,_ Kuroro slowed his steps the nearer he got to the Queen Quarters, to Oito’s rooms. _And the most dangerous part is that I don’t know what the new reasoning is._ Kuroro had never outright antagonized the Zoldycks. More often than not, his encounters with them were inspired by their own agendas. Some self-serving bites of sacrifice and several bouquets of Jenny later, Kuroro was left dealing with the collateral of Zoldyck greed. If that featured bandaging his own yawning wounds or burying a friend, it was all formality in the end.

 _But now—_ this was worse. Illumi had forfeited characteristic Zoldyck transparency. _And for what?_ Kuroro’s scoff was rough on the throat. _I’m a fool._

Kuroro could raise monuments in the name of his naiveté, the madness and anger that gave way to vengeance. _Holy Moses and the Muses,_ Kuroro released his lip and let the blood shed a line down his chin. Buried as he was in his own thoughts, there was no missing Oito’s suite—the damn machete carved oak still stood, too heavy for a ship, too heavy for god’s own shoulders. Ripples of red stained the wood, brushed through it like hair clotted with blood. _And how fitting that Kakin’s heritage is heavier in death than all else._

The hum of _nen_ was left open and docile, Kuroro could attach several names to the nodes of aura. It had been months since he’d felt Oito’s _nen_ undisturbed by others around it. Kuroro swallowed it down; much like the queen herself, it was arresting—a sheer valance of calm, motherly attachment. Tarot’s _Empress_ flashed in his mind’s eye.

Before he could set a hand against the oak, the doors glided open. It was only a narrow crack, enough for the painted angle of Oito’s profile to peer through. Kuroro blinked, _the queen herself—_ he didn’t blink twice— _opening doors?_

Oito looked calmer now than in their fleeting interactions. Her brows toted caution but not fear, and the dismissal which once framed her shoulders fell in favor of expectancy. _She’s not surprised I’m here,_ the observation wasn’t surprising to Kuroro either. He hadn’t hidden his _nen_ on the way up. Even the most disciplined of _nen_ users knew: emotion took precedence over aura. Emotion meant harmony with the self, the body.

Forcing himself into _zetsu_ now would be the equivalent of downing whiskey angry.

_Never a good idea._

And if he had to sacrifice a man or two for his peace of mind, Kuroro had no qualms.

“You’re here for Kurapika.”

Declarative, gentle, cautious; _you embody the Empress so effortlessly, queen._ Kuroro didn’t nod, though he did offer a blink, one which fell slower than usual. _The inverted Empress._ He watched her with intent, body humming with static. Oito’s eyes ran his landscape and Kuroro wasn’t sure what she saw. Dishevelment, the residue of grief and blood and curative rage—it would’ve been easy to brush her aside, take a set of varicose knuckles to her shoulder, shove her out of the way.

A month or two ago, Kuroro would’ve done more than just offer a slow second blink.

“I—” she hesitated, bringing the door to a wider cant. It gave Kuroro a clear view of her face—paled with pink and brushed with powder-youth—but nothing past. “I will let you see him.”

Before Kuroro could accept with a staid nod, she tacked a condition.

“If you will speak with me first.”

Kuroro’s wide eyes stayed wide, though they visibly strayed from apathy to intrigue. “You want my company?”

“Yes,” Oito’s mouth pursed, and there it was—a queen’s finality. _Didn’t think she had it in her._ Kuroro wanted to see Kurapika more than he wanted this, but his desire was overcome by transient curiosity.

“That’d be a pleasure.” Kuroro eased into a smile. Oito, who behaved like a hunted deer more often than the huntress she was, took it with grace and severity; she didn’t smile back. _Ah,_ Kuroro let his own settle into a grateful crescent instead, _no charming my way past, it seems._

Without another word, Oito turned from the door and walked further into the room. Kuroro took it as a cue to follow, tucking his aching fingers along the oak before sliding in.

Chiffon flowed behind her as she strode, the fabric elven-like, cuffed to her wrists. When Oito stopped, it was halfway across the room, right where Kuroro had used his greed to corner Kurapika. Kuroro studied her from the back, noting the heart of her hips and cinched waist, hair braided down her back with strands of gold he had no doubt were true-twenty karat. There was a wretched purity to her that didn’t belong in the blood-warm palette of Kakin.

There wasn’t another queen more ironically fitting of Kurapika.

“You’re a thief.” Even from the back, Kuroro caught the strain of her neck.

_Straight to the meat._

“I beg your pardon?” his brows tided, arching higher at the accusation.

“You,” she said again, slower, more condescending, “are a thief.”

“Kurapika told you, then.” Kuroro wasn’t sure why it disappointed him.

Oito turned on her heel, arms crossed. The chiffon creased in her elbows, the apricot shade almost gold against her forearms. “He did no such thing, that boy is loyal.”

_No?_

Kuroro cocked his head. “Then why would yo—”

“—assume?” Oito’s hostility was replaced with exhaustion; Kuroro imagined this was what it felt to be chastised. “You’re too good at hiding it, that’s why.”

“You’ll have to forgive me,” Kuroro intoned. “I’m not certain I follow.”

“A thief’s religion, right?” She said, gesturing to the oak door with her chin. The movement was soft, made for him to notice. “You came in without a sound. Those doors closed without a sound.”

Kuroro schooled his expression. “Excellent craftsmanship.”

“I’m sure you know how much they weigh,” Oito met his eyes. “Those doors make sound because they are designed to do so. Because it’s a marker of wealth.”

Kuroro’s smile sharpened. She wasn’t wrong; when he’d slid in, the crack of the door didn’t widen, and when he’d closed it, he’d done so without sound. _My, my,_ Kuroro bowed his head with a chuckle. “I suppose there’s no hiding it. I have to ask—why thief? There are plenty of professions which call for stealth.”

_Assassins, mercenaries._

_Adulterers._

“None that require a smile like yours,” her arms tightened, discomfort transparent. “None of which weaponize charm.”

 _Liar_ was thrown for all to catch.

“You talk like a woman who's familiar with the trade,” Kuroro didn’t care for pleasantries at this point. “As a veteran, not victim. ”

Oito’s eyes slid closed, and Kuroro saw admission in their crease.

“So I’m right,” Kuroro hummed, making a show of looking around. “You’ve done well for yourself, I must say. Not all those who steal bread end up dining with kings.”

 _More often than not,_ Kuroro’s gaze sharpened at the corners, _they end up dying for them._

“I’m not proud of it,” her voice dipped in the middle, lashes low over her eyes when she opened them. Kuroro took it in—the brief and unspoken admission. _Ah, I knew it._ He’d known it from the moment he’d seen her. The poor had a rawness to them, a shrewdness no rich man could ever hope to buy. Kuroro saw it in his Spiders. He saw it in Hisoka, missed it in Illumi.

 _Hunger_.

Heavy ribs and hollow stomachs. Insatiable.

“The insignia of the starving,” he spoke more to himself than Oito, and she let him do so without question. Past the expensive paint and the lace-ends of chiffon, it all shone through. _Looks like we’re a matching set, exalted._ Inhaling, Kuroro held her stare. “Color me unsurprised, then.”

Oito was, though. She blinked, her mouth hovering open. Licking her lips, she risked asking. “You—knew?”

“I assumed,” Kuroro admitted, walking to rest his hips against the wall. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a thief, but those eyes—”

Whether she was aware of it or not, Oito’s lashes trembled.

“—too afraid.” Kuroro cocked his head. “I’ve never seen a rich man fear for anything but his own life.”

Oito looked away, her profile longer than Tserriednich’s, carved from a different stone. Every shift of her features served a reminder that—whether Kurapika knew it or not—Oito was bred elsewhere. Built and assembled by some other tongue and other god. Kuroro watched her, catalogued every line her body made. “You’re not Kakin’s.”

_Kakin’s streets don’t look like you._

Without looking at him, she swallowed a mark of hurt. “No.”

“Why did you ask to speak with me?” Kuroro didn’t snap, even with his voice held whip-like in monotone.

“Because,” Oito bit, a little afraid but still graceful. She turned back to him, walking herself forward in slow strides, as though any wrong move would cost her more than a lock of hair; as far as Kuroro was concerned, it very well could have— _had I not promised to not hurt you._ He never made it a habit to kill incessantly and unnecessarily, though temptation struck unplanned. Coming to a stand a foot from him, Oito breathed out her words. “I’ve learned to trust my gut.”

Kuroro’s expression was etched from a single slab of marble.

With measured movements, Oito reached forward, tucking milk-soft fingers beneath his head gauze before swiping it off him. Kuroro’s hair fell limp, framing the blue-fade cross between his brows. Oito’s eyes went from decisive to disbelief to despair in a series of rolling lips and deep breaths; Kuroro knew what it meant, knew she recognized the symbol.

Which only meant one thing.

“ _Gene’i Ryodan,_ ” she breathed in a tongue Kuroro hadn’t heard in years, untranslated.

_Meteorite._

“Observant,” Kuroro spoke, flat and patronizing. “Far from home, aren’t we?”

“I knew it,” she ignored him, the words heavy in her mouth. She took a step back, her mouth an ugly twist of pre-mature rage. “ _Terrorist_.”

Kuroro’s eyes dropped to a narrow, sharper than shrapnel and twice as deliberate. The image of a rifle in the backseat flashed in his mind, lines of powdered white braced and fragile against the edge of a _Plath_ corpus. It was a different lifetime, when he’d wake up with bruises in his mouth and an aching jaw, not remembering where the splintered bones came from—just that they were black, green and throbbing. Dismantling an automatic had been the sweetest innocence; learning _nen_ had supplemented his trigger finger, replaced heavy-metal massacre with something softer, bloodier.

Poetic.

_And they’d loved me for it._

_Love me for it still._

The only people in this world who idolized what Kuroro stood for—worshiped him for it—were his own people. The pariahs that dug their nails into scabs and kissed their lips to the tulip of a broken bottle. Meteorites appreciated what the Gene’i Ryodan stood for, the backbreaking brutality they used to both punish and appreciate the world all at once. But in Oito’s eyes, Kuroro saw none of it. No cause or caution.

Just crucifixion.

“I wouldn’t call myself that.” He spoke, voice iced.

“You don’t need to,” Oito sounded broken, as though the realization of who— _what_ —stood in front of her weighed more than the sky itself. _Now, now._ _Don’t break your back, Atlas._ “Your reputation is far more vocal than you could ever dream of being.”

“So I’m told.”

“What do you want with Kurapika?” she spoke with newfound edge. It was jarring how similar the two were; _angry only when it isn’t your neck on the guillotine._ Her shoulders pressed out, her collar reminiscent of coral—freckled, beautiful, hardened with poison. If he hadn’t sold his soul to Kurapika’s bite, Kuroro might have dreamed some depraved dream about Oito herself.

_Wrath is a beautiful thing._

“He and I have an arrangement, quid pro quo,” Kuroro responded, diplomatic. He made no move to replace the distance she kept between them. “He’s helping me find someone, I’m helping him get something.”

“And when the arrangement ends?” Oito was quick to press, unrelenting in the same way any mother would be. Kuroro flashed an unimpressed row of teeth; she couldn’t have been too much older than he was. “What are your plans for him then?”

“If there’s something you want to say,” Kuroro tilted his chin higher, peering at her through black sleet eyes. “I urge you to come out and say it.”

“If you harm him,” Oito exhaled through her nose, teeth clenched to ache, “I will make sure it is your greatest regret.”

“I encourage you to try,” Kuroro licked the corner of his lips, “I’ve got plenty of regrets, all of them biblical.”

“I’m sure I’ll come up with something.” She snapped, eyes mapped with exhaustion, lips trembling with unkempt disapproval. “If you hurt him, in any way, I swear to the Messiah—”

One side of Kuroro’s nose hitched.

“No need for ultimatums,” he said, if only to water down the hostility. “I don’t plan on harming him. I’m quite fond of him, actually.”

_Quite._

Kurapika’s vaulting hips came to mind, the salt of his skin, sting of his kiss.

_Fond, indeed._

Oito’s body made no show of backing down, though the admission was enough to loosen her shoulders. “You’re attached to him. I don’t enjoy the idea but—” her lips rolled, gaze traveling to the gauze still gripped in her fist. “If you’re helping him, then so be it.”

Silence overtook the room. Kuroro watched her fingers tighten around the fabric when he spoke, “You’re braver than I took you for.”

Oito scoffed, shaking her head. “I’m a coward. I put others on the frontline because I don’t have the power to do much else.”

“Most queens do,” Kuroro’s own irritation simmered to a gentle hush. “Not for lack of courage, but for lack of agency.”

Oito held her silence for another moment, until Kuroro saw the last of tension slip from her shoulders, down past her knees. “I wasn’t born a queen.”

“And I wasn’t born a thief,” _or a killer or a monster or a lover,_ “We adapt to what we become. You were dealt this hand, whether you drew it yourself or had it handed to you,” Kuroro gave Oito a once-over, sharp enough to cut judgment into her, but still soft enough to balm the damage. “Either live with it, or let it skin you alive.”

Oito winced, body dropping to take a loose seat by the vanity. Her void gaze stayed on the wall tapestry.

 _Either become the queen,_ he stared openly, _or die her slave._

“Know this,” she swallowed, turning to meet his eyes again. This time, she held no queenly put-togetherness. Every inch of her was possessed by the ruthless, bleeding madonna every queen soon became: eyes shadowed, hair flirting with a fray, body desolate and worn. “Kurapika is far more forgiving than I am.”

“Oh?” Kuroro leveled. “I wouldn’t call that creature forgiving.”

Oito said nothing more, and the quiet was a tongue of ice up his spine.

_Exactly._

//

The cold stayed. Oito hadn’t bothered getting up from her seat, instead directing Kuroro to the bathhouse while still slanted by her vanity. She’d flicked her eyes, tilted her jaw, and sent him down an unseen path—and Kuroro had followed without knowing where it led, while recognizing fully he’d been dismissed. Any temptation to downplay Oito’s regality was put to its grave; Kuroro would’ve sooner bit his tongue off and yanked his teeth out. Respect had a way about it.

Fear might’ve given away _what_ she was, but the hunger—the bitterness—had set it in stone: they were cut from the same cloth. The dreadful need to high-tail out of Meteor City, the immediate need to climb echelons to the top of the food chain, no matter the price. If Oito had paid for it with her body, he’d been no better; Kuroro used the bodies of others.

The corpses of others.

Easing his reborn tension, Kuroro followed the _nen_ signature he knew to be Kurapika’s. He didn’t question why the man was using a Queen’s bath rather than the guards’, though Kuroro had an inkling it spoke to how much Oito cherished him. If the pseudo-shovel-talk hadn’t cemented it, this did. She may not have mastered her _nen—_ aura a leaking mess of emotion and despair—but she didn’t need to. _There’s nothing more powerful, more dangerous, than a threatened mother._ A knife strapped to the thigh—between teeth—was less threatening than a weaponized tongue. Mothers were not to be fucked with.

Kuroro stopped thinking.

The decorative doorway was lined with glass, curtained with beaded silk. Reaching out, he slid a hand past, knuckles splaying the silk open. Humidity greeted him first, heat rolling into the smolder of bath salts. Luxury misted into lavender, the heady _ittar_ that was sure to cling to Kuroro’s unwashed hair and the suede of his stolen sherpa. Mosaic walls sweat with steam, their colors teased into patterns of royal blue and dried hibiscus.

Heat needled Kuroro's neck. The room was nowhere near as large as he’d first imagined; it was a narrow matchbox bathhouse with a hexagonal _hammam_ capping the room, sides fissured with streaks of gemstone and whatever remained of Kuroro’s sanity.

An exhale pried his lips apart.

He wasn’t sure which part of the landscape landed his awe most: the grandeur, the delirium—or the creased, bare butterfly of Kurapika’s back.

Ruinous lust brayed in Kuroro’s mind and he damned deities he didn’t worship in languages he couldn’t remember. Kurapika was turned from the doorway, shoulders wound, wet cords of hair wrung into a high knot. Strays curled open down his nape, valleying the bank of an early spine; any vestiges of composure were thrown out, and Kuroro made no secret of his staring. He saw nothing past the brace of Kurapika’s elbows along the mosaic, though that was enough to inspire the cutthroat lust he’d let grow inside him. 

_May the Gods burn._

Control was one of his few, few virtues, and regaining it meant everything. Kuroro steeled himself, got past the attraction and earned himself a breath or two in the process. Before his numb tongue could find the space to speak, Kurapika’s head turned to the side, profile shaved by light. Without looking back, his eyes hung straight, his jaw tight, and his brows too low to welcome.

_Scarlet._

“Leave.”

Reality knocked its way back into Kuroro’s iron-maiden chest. The word was loaded, Kurapika’s eyes several shades from natural and his _nen_ several shades too pitched. Running water ate away at the peace, and Kuroro watched pool water dice Kurapika’s irises, winding and waving its reflection. His skin was glass, in the way most morbid things were: _majestic_.

 _Blind eye of a storm,_ the air thinned, and his lips closed; _that’s what this is._

Kuroro’s first step echoed an iron-toe against colored stone.

Kurapika’s expression tightened, chin dipping closer to the heart of his collar. But one step led to the other, and the quicker they came, the more entitled to Kurapika’s company Kuroro became. When he reached the _hammam_ ’s edge, Kuroro hovered over him. For a set of heartbeats, Kurapika didn’t move, allowing the sound of running water to barrier the space between them.

When the heartbeats ran out, he craned his neck back and looked straight up at Kuroro.

Heat dyed the dunes of his face, drenched his lips peach and bridge plum. Kuroro didn’t know where to look, eyes brushing over brows to pick at the chiseled collar, to those fucking _Eyes—_ it would’ve been easy to press down on Kurapika’s forehead, lean into the crescent throat, _what would you_ —

“Knock.” Kurapika hissed.

“There’s no door,” Kuroro responded, jaded and distracted.

“Then you wait.”

“No.”

_Let me have you._

Kurapika’s hand shot up, inverted to grip Kuroro’s jaw. Angry nails dug into his cheeks and Kuroro allowed it to drag his body into a bend. They were so close, faces mirrored in reverse, Kuroro’s sultry expression met with a different kind of heat. An angrier heat, Kurapika’s snarl blowing bites of air into his face. “Stop _fucking_ with me.”

Saying nothing, Kuroro stared. Kurapika’s eyes didn’t move between his own—there was no searching for something missing, no hesitance or bargaining in the way he held strong. Lividity wore him well, mouth hitched over teeth and gently trembling. Kuroro’s gaze was low, lashes shadowing his sight; he was far from delusional, this was neither the time nor the place for something stupid. But impulse begged him to override sense, and as his jaw tilted higher instinctively, Kurapika’s expression soured. 

He swung Kuroro’s face to the side.

Head turning back down, Kurapika gave him room to breathe. Kuroro brought a hand up, massaging his jaw.

“You’re terribly violent,” Kuroro commented, airy, before dropping to a perch against the bath. The edges of suede soaked up the excess water, though Kuroro couldn’t be fucked to move. He leaned on his hand, back to the bath. “A casual killer.”

_Of more than just people._

The steam braided around Kurapika’s body, around scars Kuroro hadn’t seen in his dreams. Touch slowing along his jaw, Kuroro frowned; no, his dreams didn’t feature old stitches and arm-length bruising. Kurapika’s skin, what he’d once assumed clear alabaster, was coated in trauma. Red-black lines which looked like the consequence of broken ribs. _Fresh._ Too fresh, even, for the way Kurapika was sitting slouched. _Broken bones don’t heal overnight._

_This isn’t something a bath that can fix._

Kurapika’s eyes were stamped with watercolored insomnia, dark and unapologetic. Kuroro’s memory flashed; this was worse than the first handful of nights on the Whale. Kuroro’d slept with his own saturnine exhaustion before, he knew the feeling, enough to know this looked more like a swallow of hemlock than a lack of sleep. His frown released. Kurapika was a Conjuror.

 _Why does your_ nen _sound like mine?_

The static in Kuroro’s brain almost met in the middle.

 _He did something,_ to his Eyes, to his body. Before Kuroro could make the call, Kurapika closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “You’re plenty violent yourself, I caution you not to judge so quickly.”

“I would hardly call this quick,” Kuroro intoned, staring at the sharp—nen- _bruised—_ profile with newfound calculation. “I’d say I knew you well enough by now.”

Kurapika’s breath shallowed, though he was keen to keep a moment of silence before he spoke.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Kuroro stared at him. They were poles apart, even when he was close enough to feel the density of Kurapika’s aura. “You look like shit.”

Where Kuroro expected an indignant sound, Kurapika just hummed. “I feel like shit.”

“Who did this to you?” Kuroro ignored him.

“What did this, you mean,” Kurapika sighed, brown eyes opening to a slit. “No guesses? I’ll give you three.”

Kuroro’s fingers dug into the edge of the bath, mosaic shifting and grinding beneath the pressure. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, I absolutely did,” Kurapika tilted his head to the side, neck a ripe apricot Kuroro wanted to choke. Kurapika’s voice parodied playfulness, stayed honeyed with unbearable cynicism. “Looks like you might not know me too well after all, _my love._ ”

Kuroro flinched.

Squares of mosaic plopped into the water, slipping out from under his grip. Kurapika smiled, sparing a wry, slit look at the sinking glass.

Kuroro spoke past grit teeth, “You went after him.”

_Tserriednich._

Kurapika’s cruel amusement stayed, somehow made worse by the brown of his eyes. It was the first he’d seen them, Kuroro realized, the first time they weren’t artificial. It was a taupe-rose color he’d seen countless times, purposely burned it red on too many people. If he had to describe it to a blind man, Kuroro would’ve called it a terrible shade of perfect sobriety. There was no heat and no indifference, nothing contrived and nothing alive. This was Kurapika at his absolute.

A true neutral that spoke of calculation.

_Miscalculation._

“You could’ve died.”

“I could’ve,” Kurapika cocked his head, looking at Kuroro out of the corner of his eyes. It was more challenge than temptation; _he knows._ Whatever Kuroro felt, Kurapika knew. Maybe knew more than Kuroro himself. Or maybe it was the illusion of power he gave off, even beaten and bloody. “I didn’t.”

Kuroro’s hand shot out, fingers grabbing Kurapika by the back of the head. Blonde hair loosened in his grip, but despite the scoff of discomfort Kurapika released, his smile didn’t. There was a laugh caught under his bit lip. Kuroro’s monotone strayed to its lower octave. “You’re a stupid cunt who doesn’t know when to take an order.”

His grip was a tight point of power rather than pain.

Heat-drunk, Kurapika huffed a bitter laugh and met him straight. “I am.”

“You could’ve died,” Kuroro repeated.

“I didn’t.”

Jaw locking, Kuroro stared at him for a long moment before releasing. He made a show of looking away as Kurapika winced in pain. “How?”

_How are you still breathing?_

Kurapika reached back, tugging his hair into a more comfortable knot before heaving in a breath. “He was asleep. The idea wasn’t to harm him, I just—I needed to see it again. Sober.”

“The Eyes?”

“The Beast.”

Kurapika’s bitterness had lost all its humor. Kuroro’s expression hardned. “You wanted to see the head.”

The response came after a moment. “I did.”

 _I was right,_ Kuroro stared up at the vaulted ceiling, _there was more to it._ “You loved that boy.”

“And you killed him,” Kurapika hummed, water shifting around him with a gentle sound. “Guess we both knew him intimately, I just have one shred of humanity over you.”

“A shred isn’t much.”

“I know.”

 _Love is not merciful_ , hung as densely in the air as Kuroro’s breath.

Kuroro looked back down, watching Kurapika’s fingers skip over the water surface. The topaz mosaic served as dye, still not deep enough to hide the scarring of Kurapika’s thighs, the brittleness of his ankles. The illusion of weakness was nothing in comparison to the power his aura toted. “What was he to you?”

Kurapika’s fingers dipped under the surface, fingers spreading. “A mistake.”

Kuroro swallowed, focusing on the stillness of Kurapika’s earring for the lack of somewhere to look. “People don’t mourn their mistakes.”

“He was a mistake,” Kurapika repeated, head coming to rest back by Kuroro’s thigh, tilting to face him. “The type that keeps you up, makes you regret too many things except meeting them. Knowing them. He’s that mistake.”

“You know,” Kuroro risked his voice, whispered it. “It would’ve made no difference.”

_You being there._

Kurapika blinked, slow and sated, lashes stained darker with water. “It would’ve.”

“I would’ve killed you, too.”

The soft smile was a sledgehammer to the knees. “Exactly.”

 _Ah,_ Kuroro didn’t look away, _the inflection point;_ the admission he’d been looking for. Kuroro hated it. Kurapika had built himself up as a force to be reckoned with, an assembly that couldn’t be taken down—at least not by Kuroro. And for a breath, it made sense why Kurapika had removed his hand from Kuroro’s neck, even when he’d been given the opportunity to end everything.

 _You expect me to be the end of you,_ Kuroro’s body loosened at the waist, shoulders dropping to an arrowhead. _You never expected it to be the other way around._

_You never thought you’d succeed._

“I understand.”

Kuroro didn’t know why he’d said it, and he hadn’t really heard himself say it either. The only evidence it’d ever left him was the wide-eyed look Kurapika grazed over him. A slow once over, faithful to curiosity and heartbreak. Kuroro realized, just as Kurapika had, it was a look of subdued awe; he believed Kuroro. Whatever the statement had meant, and whatever it had stood for, it landed truthful.

“You do,” Kurapika said, voice caged in the attic of his throat. “What do you understand?”

“Being born to die,” truth was a lot lighter on the tongue than he’d imagined. “Not having a life worth living, not really.”

“You—” Kurapika’s sentence fragmented. “I don’t understand.”

Kuroro smiled down at him, a sunlight smile that was liquid warmth and bitter sobriety. “Baptized in blood, your middle-finger the peak of prayer. You understand better than anyone what that means.”

Meteor City’s thunder clapped in him, the empty fountain pen he’d dug into brick then poison then his own thigh—to feel _._ To grow from the vineyard of veins that mapped his skin after. Looking at Kurapika now, it was all he saw: a desperation to die without leaving a mess. _But I’m too selfish to let that happen to you,_ he adjusted his body to fold closer. Kurapika’s expression looked like the crossroads between sadness and exhaustion.

It looked like submission.

Kuroro’s body stalled in a need to reach out; not for the soft comfort of a hand to the cheek, but the assertive yank of one to the nape. He valued the look almost as much as he valued all of Kurapika’s emotions, though it brought in an overflow of melancholy Kuroro didn’t know existed in him. A mourning for everything, all at once. _Why—why now?_

_Why this?_

Truth had been easier to spit than any half-truth he’d spent his guts on making real. When Kuroro’s breath loosened his words, he chose to quote them anyway.

“ _Riches I hold in light esteem, and love I laugh to scorn—”_ his voice caved in on its deepest octave, “ _and lust of fame was but a dream that vanished with the morn._ ”

A stanza Kuroro never prescribed to himself. Money and glory had driven him from teeth numbed cold to sipping mulled wine; there was nothing about it he would change. Not for anything, not for anyon—

“ _And if I pray—”_ Before he could turn away, Kurapika’s breath shaped itself around the poem, welcomed it as a whisper. He swallowed bile, and looked at the hook of Kuroro’s jacket when Kuroro wanted so desperately to look at his mouth, _“the only prayer that moves my lips for me, is: ‘leave the heart that I now bear, and give me liberty.’”_

This was what losing everything felt like. Every maxim and ideal, every notch in his person he’d so generously crafted.

 _“Yes,”_ the knot in Kuroro’s throat became an organ of its own, _“As my swift days near their goal, ’tis all that I implore—”_

 _“—in life and death—”_ Kurapika’s teeth clicked on the words, gave them sound his voice didn’t.

Maybe couldn’t.

Kuroro’s head lowered, _“—a chainless soul—”_

 _“—with courage to endure.”_ Kurapika sealed the poem with a tilted head, their faces poised in the same frame. Close enough, Kuroro realized, that the gold etched into Kurapika’s skin weren't shards of sun; they were scars.

Kuroro thoughts numbed. “Brontë.”

Kurapika hummed, reaching to press the hair back from Kuroro’s forehead, bringing the cross back into view. Why he’d done it, Kuroro couldn’t be fucked to wonder—not when the heel of his palm brushed into Kuroro’s brow the way it did, wrist smelling of honey and jasmine. Once the cross was clear, Kurapika dropped his touch. The silence sat and dominated, and Kuroro allowed it the space to do so.

Kurapika licked his lips, eyes flat swatches directed at the tattoo. “I need you to tell me something.”

“Anything.” Kuroro exhaled, drunk.

“What do you know of my _nen_?”

“Not much,” Kuroro admitted, his blinks soft but quick. “Not past _Jail_ and _Judgement_.”

Kurapika nodded, sedate, before holding up a palm. The water cast his skin with lines of bleached white, burning reflection into the angle of his jaw as well; Kuroro whipped himself into focus. Lowering his little finger, Kurapika spoke. “ _Judgement Chain._ ”

Kuroro blinked. “Wait—”

And one by one, his fingers curled into his palm, counted off and given meaning. Kuroro watched his mouth form the words— _Dowsing Chain, Steal Chain, Chain Jail, Holy Chain—_

_“Stop.”_

Kurapika’s eyes slid closed.

“Why are you telling me this?” Kuroro kept his voice sharp, any and all haze wiped from his mind. There was no rhyme or reason behind Kurapika disclosing this information. Pieces so vital, even in name alone, that they could crown his death. _I don’t need to know,_ came before, _I shouldn’t know._ Kuroro didn’t want to tell Kurapika of his own _nen,_ didn’t want the burden of—

When Kurapika’s eyes flashed open, they flashed scarlet.

_“Emperor Time.”_

Kuroro’s palate staled and his chest burst open like unripened pomegranate. The _nen_ was magmatic; gold poured into a man’s open mouth. It made a home of the cavities in Kuroro’s own aura, and Lusko made one of his mind— _seared skin and seared bark, wooden idols on fire_ —the weight of Kurapika’s eyes folding Kuroro’s tongue into the bottom ridges of his mouth. A starved dive into depravity that took lives— _Seraphim,_ holy and unholy, something that should not exist.

His mind’s static—which had once stilled just short of connection—slammed together in a burst of liquid lightning.

_What did you do to yourself?_

“ _Emperor Time,_ ” Kuroro repeated, immodest disbelief in his voice. What was once a true _Conjuror_ ’s aura tasted too much like rust behind his teeth. “I— _no_.”

“No?” Kurapika’s monotone complemented his apathy.

“You’re a not _Specialist_ ,” Kuroro’s eyes narrowed, studying the inclines of Kurapika’s body, the maladjustment of his sanity. “You did something to become one.”

Kurapika tilted his head, bringing it to a slow nod. “Yeah, I did.”

“What’s the caveat?” Kuroro demanded. “What’s the _Condition_?”

The smile Kurapika gave him was a silent thunderstorm. He mouthed the words twice, and it was all Kuroro needed to put the pieces together.

_Tick-tock._

There was nothing to say to that, not with Kurapika’s eyes still blazing and ruined. It welcomed violence into the room in a way that made it more than a little hard to breathe. There was nothing to say, but Kuroro spoke anyway. “Why?”

“Why tell you?” Kurapika leaned his head back onto the mosaic. Kuroro wanted so desperately to press a hand over his eyes. “Or why do it?”

Kuroro’s jaw ached, too tight to allow comfortable conversation.

“I’m not sure,” Kurapika closed his eyes. “To burden you—to beat you, maybe.”

“At _what_ ,” Kuroro didn’t mean for the scoff to leave him as hissed as it had, head panning to the side.

“This.” Kurapika was quiet for a moment, enough to force Kuroro’s cynical gaze back down. “Whatever _this_ is.”

Kuroro looked back at him, taking in the unfeeling voice paired with breath belonging to something dangerous. Kurapika’s brows hung serious, the tilt of his mouth more hesitant than his words. Though distraction came in spades when those eyes didn’t meet his own. Instead, they fell—and remained—at Kuroro’s nose.

Then lower _._

Kurapika’s hair had loosened almost entirely, humid curls pressed against his cheeks and the corner of his mouth, shoulders dusted bronze. The heat pigmented his skin, Kuroro decided, in a way the sun never could; had the purples and the golds swim straight under, an ichor of its own sort. Kuroro’s breath was generous, spilling past his lips.

_He wants me to kiss him._

And Kuroro wanted to kiss him, too.

_What a morbid moment, my dear._

The scene was a warped version of what he’d pictured it to be—removed from everything that lay past the beaded doorway, past the promise of death and killing and guts and gore. On every spectrum, it was wrong. Not that Kuroro ever lauded rhyme, reason or the fucking _mores_ of society. That made it easy to crane his neck, sigh into the honey-milk swatching Kurapika’s throat.

His nose lined Kurapika’s when their foreheads brushed, pushing the blonde fringe from its place. Kuroro leaned into the touch and enjoyed it for what it was, his lashes catching on damp cheeks. Neither of them rushed into the movement, hesitance marking their momentum. Kuroro’s eyes flirted with the idea of closing as his body tilted lower. He was still perched against the _hammam_ , Kurapika’s spine stretched to meet him somewhere between. Waist winding, he let a breath settle onto Kurapika’s mouth.

And Kurapika let the bow of their upper lips brush.

Calculation poured itself out of Kuroro’s body, his form folding. Kurapika’s face tilted lower, diluting any chance of a kiss but not the proximity between them. With a thick inhale, Kuroro let him do it, mouth and nose brushing into Kurapika’s temple and scent instead. It was closer now, intimate in a way that begged him closer. Heeding instinct’s warnings, but hailing desire instead, Kuroro chose to bank a hand onto Kurapika’s throat—that freckled incline that promised warmth.

Finger pads traced his own collar, and Kuroro couldn’t be damned to guess when Kurapika had reache—

His eyes flashed to focus.

When his hand shot up—in hopes of gripping Kurapika’s wrist hard enough to _shatter it_ —it wasn’t before the man had managed to channel all his aggression into pulling apart the buttons of the sherpa. Nails scraped down the bare angles of Kuroro's chest, Kurapika’s energy a multitude of stillness.

The Maiden, in all its glory, sat in full view.

A stake of electricity—bottled by his spine, rolling into it—shot from tailbone to the pit of his skull, lungs fuming; the hymn of pain Kuroro knew too well and had forgotten far too easily. Kurapika didn’t breathe and he didn’t speak, his nails left dug into Kuroro’s abdomen and his fingers still hooked into the only button which held against his onslaught. The hand Kuroro’d used to frame Kurapika’s throat became clenched around it, the other threatening the bones of his wrist.

Desire drained from the air.

The altar of opportunity, it seemed, was a _bitch_ to worship at. Kuroro’s fingers weakened around Kurapika’s wrist, but even when the bone ground under his grip and the fragile tendons of his neck bent, Kurapika did nothing to remove it. Did nothing to move or address the tree which sat between them in the form of faded brown henna and white blossoms.

“Get out.”

The voice or the words: one of the two triggered blood under Kuroro’s tongue. Kurapika sounded as void as he looked, eyes a cemented brown. There was no semblance of life to him save the pulse Kuroro felt beneath his fingers, and even that was a faint pitter-patter he likened more to rain than life. Neither of them shifted.

When he spoke again, Kurapika made certain their eyes locked.

“ _Kuroro_ ,” accented, breathed, caged and brutal. “I need you to get out.”

“It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kuroro’s mouth beat his reasoning. His defense mechanisms, ones that only surfaced in moments of absolute panic, flourished like the revitalized ache in his chest. The knee jerk hostility had his grip on Kurapika’s neck tightening only just. _Why didn’t you just—_

 _—let me_ fucking _kiss you?_

“Naturally,” Kurapika scoffed a desolate sound. “That’s why it suits you well, right?”

It was clear as day: _you think it's intentional._ But Kuroro would sooner slice his tongue clear from its roots and choke on his own clotted blood than admit to Kurapika what the Maiden was—what the burn and the blossoms truly were. He would sooner die than have Kurapika pity him—or worse, reject him.

_I’d sooner die._

_I’d sooner die._

_I’d soon—_

“And why,” Kuroro decided, voice a whispered tundra, “it suited them so well, too.”

Kurapika’s nails demanded blood from his skin, right before he swung into movement, shoving Kuroro back with a deranged look of rage unlike anything either of them had ever scripted.

“I know,” Kurapika hissed, and like static, it broke down the middle. “I _know_ it did.”

When Kuroro stumbled his way backward, out of the bathhouse and into the Queens Quarters, he pretended the breaking glass— _oil vials, salts, mosaic_ —was a shatter in the next room.

_I hate the way you say my name._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **lifeline** : _indicates a person’s physical vitality, life energy, and length of life; predicts illness and injury._
> 
> nothing sexier than emotionally cartwheeling into the new year, lmao cheers my dudes. this one was crazy dense writing-wise, though, i'm sorry! i got.. uh, carried away.
> 
> as always, feedback is what makes this monster fun to write - so please feed your local starving fic writer, i _really_ need the drive to finish this thing 😩


	7. act vii. ring of saturn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please enjoy kuroro’s rocketing descent into instability - it’s fantastic & well deserved. 
> 
> as always, honk honk my dudes [@itsillumi](https://itsillumi.tumblr.com/)

She’d once threatened him with loneliness, the type that came with failure.

The type that inked _chauvinist_ across his throat and embroidered _fraud_ onto the inside of his lip. And Pakunoda—Kuroro’s teeth knocked against the ridge of the sink, the corner of his mouth hooking blood and resin—hadn’t been wrong. The warning had come after one too many drinks in an alleyway, when the sugar of cheap rum metabolized into acid and a good time became a stomach ache. 

_‘You won’t come back from this the same,’_ the calm of it had forced Kuroro’s head into her shoulder, nose searching her neck for juvenile comfort. Back then, Silva’s eyes had streaked through him like carnage, and seeing his Spider’s dead body had done something to him, broke something. That night rewired Kuroro’s mind into a faithful, irreversible separation between _pathos—_ emotion, empathy—and power.

He couldn’t have both, not at once. 

_‘Rockbottom will ruin you,’_ she’d once said, ‘ _keep it together, protect your momentum, Kuroro—or you’re not going to last.’_

He choked on the memory, eyes slanted in pain, the white sink looking more crime-scene than clean. The chalked rum on his teeth was replaced by splinters of wood, his tongue numbed by toxic sap. Pakunoda wasn’t holding his hair for him this time around. Another heave hit porcelain and flew back onto his cheek. Experiencing Spiders die had always been painful—and while Kuroro’s young blood once rioted, _Silva Zoldyck, Silva Zoldyck, Silva Zoldyck,_ it bled too shallow to do the same now. He didn’t have the energy to deal Kurapika the fury he’d dealt Silva.

Kuroro had been helpless then, and never since. 

_Never—_

Pain eclipsed the memory of Pakunoda, overwriting Shalnark’s face and the Seven of Diamonds that smelt like gunpowder, _Franklin_. Kuroro had always known, when the sun set on them, no one would call it a tragedy. They weren’t a tragedy; they were the catharsis that followed, the moral others took home and put away and never looked at again. People wanted them dead. _Kurapika_ wanted them dead. 

He hacked a dry heave, tearless when it tore out of him. Kuroro’s tongue welcomed the scrape of something foreign, pushing past the chamber of his chest into his mouth. Wrist wired and fingers trembling, Kuroro reached under tongue.

And yanked. 

The vine was more brown-black than green, coated more in Kuroro’s death than the life of Kurapika’s people. There were no petals, no silk soft collapse of the lung; what blood he could spit out, Kuroro did, and what he couldn’t, he allowed to bead back into his throat. He’d made a home of the end of the world too many times, chose the harshest angles to soften his landing— _but I’ve never experienced a threat so tender._

_All because it carries your fucking face._

A weak fist beat against the sink edge, his head hanging low as he choked on nothing. This was unlike any other temporary death he’d ever experienced. More real, more certain. _I’m going to die,_ and this time the thought ran deep and dry, marble weathered by centuries of current, finally exposed and falling apart to elements. 

_‘I know it did._ ’

Kurapika had hissed it in the most fragile syllables. Kuroro never anticipated soft words could blind. But _Kurapika had always been vicious_ , and it was little more than an unkind reminder that he would never change. No, Kurapika was a lit match dropped into a gallon of gasoline, and while Kuroro was prepared to swallow knives, he couldn’t swallow fire. 

Wouldn’t swallow fire. 

Letting the memory fragment, his form sagged. A hand braced him against the mirror, the other too weak and unsteady to reach for the faucet. 

Looking up into the mirror was inevitable. 

Kuroro’s reflection chopped pieces straight from his sanity. Dishevelment was too frugal to describe the shredded lips, tipped in blue, and the blood curling from his his nose. Eyes were flattened to their bases, his skin freckled in rust, reeking of sap and iron. Dry tear tracks hollowed Kuroro’s cheeks, the only memento of his forceful coughing. _What a theatrical way to die, a spectacular killing,_ violet smoked his throat, the inside trauma making itself known, _as though it hadn’t already in every other_ —his mind came to a stop, swift. When breath seized, sharp and strained, it had nothing to do with the pain.

The Maiden was in half-bloom.

Kuroro had lost a lung. 

_Henna_ filled the outline of one side of his chest, stayed loyal to the curve of his ribs and the pillow-shape of the organ it colonized. What he’d dismissed as a handful of painted flowerets, now established their certitude-finality- _fatality_ , as a rich canvas. The tree which had once stopped growing and the pain that had stalled for weeks, came back with the conscience of the devil in storm. Kuroro’s tongue bled black past his teeth and he didn’t wipe the excess when it strung past his chin, throat, onto the paper-white cornucopias. 

Kuroro was lightheaded. 

When his knees locked, he didn’t have the strength to wonder whether it was the lack of oxygen or the blood loss.

//

The ceiling sat too close for comfort and the room built itself too narrow around his body. Gravity flattened his lungs, leveling his chest and his arms and any semblance of breath Kuroro was able to summon. He blinked—a slow pull of the lid and forced push of the lash—his fingers not obeying when he urged them to curl. It was a familiar paralysis in an unfamiliar spot. This wouldn’t be the last time Kuroro’s body numbed itself into immobility. _Ah,_ his breath halved in quick hiccups of air, despite the slow haze of his reality. 

The room faded in and out of focus, and although black didn’t threaten the edges of his gaze, the lack of control had Kuroro leaning into it. 

_I’m dying._

He had to be. 

There was no explanation for why everything was frozen in white, why his body had taken to motionless chaos. The oxymoron was ridiculous, and still took to Kuroro’s mind like the bow of a rusting ship took to the ocean floor. Ache dulled his limbs, pressed into his muscles and the soft tissue at his temples. Thinking was hard, harder than breathing; he couldn’t see himself, but the image Kuroro saw in his mind’s eye was what, once upon a day in Meteor City, he would’ve labeled a broken man. A weak one, who turned his body out into a ruin rather than the empire it deserved to be. 

Someone who didn’t know how to make the world his bitch. 

_What labels me,_ Kierkegaard’s words constellated as Kuroro’s only thought, _negates me._

A mellower voice tapped into the haze, just outside the sphere of his focus. It was gentle enough to ask for permission, too far to fully crystalize. He ignored it, elected to focus on the quiet rapture of being stoned out of his mind on pain. Wanting to die had nothing to do with it—Kuroro didn’t want to die—but he supposed the tessellation of cheap porcelain was a good enough view. 

The voice manifested as a touch to the forehead, urging sensation back into Kuroro’s skin. 

“—ou awake?”

Without turning his head, Kuroro led his eyes from the ceiling to the side. Black registered first, then wide brown eyes, then the bathtub that caged his body and the elbow he knocked against its perimeter. Shizuku’s face stared back at him, an ode to curiosity and indifference. Maybe morbid interest—there was always something morbid too. Kuroro stared back. 

Death was a cheapskate. 

Kuroro turned down to himself; she must have lifted him into the tub. The last thing he recalled was a hollow thought of Kurapika’s face and the denseness of a concrete lung and the floor. A lung, his breath dictated, stretched with wet cement—unusable. Kuroro was no stranger to torture, his body having been subject to it countless times, in all its forms. Even then, _hanahaki_ challenged the coasts of his tolerance with its ecosystem of psychosomatic mindfuckery. Everything Kuroro had imagined his death to be—rip-roaring, chased, siren-strung—was forfeit. 

_And for what?_

For him. 

Swallowing the dryness in his mouth, Kuroro reigned over his emotions with grace. 

_I’m not done here yet._

_“Danchou,_ ” Shizuku repeated, patience immature. “You up yet?”

With a voice scraped straight off the coals—with no less of a burn—Kuroro tilted his head in her direction. “Sure.”

Nodding, her shoulders sagged in what he could only assume was relief. “Your aura dropped all of a sudden. Thought I’d check up on you.”

“How kind.” He didn’t sound kind. Kuroro drew a breath into his remaining lung. The human body was an extraordinary, desperate thing: an architecture so willing to accept a knock-off existence insofar that it continued existing. Pathetic in the most admirable way imaginable. 

Shizuku took it in stride and made a seat of the closed toilet. She’d taken off her coat, sleeves wet with saturated black. Blood _._ “You look awful. Did something happen?”

Kuroro winced. Hiding his emotions would do no good when everything else was transparent on his body. Every well-kept secret had folded out onto his skin like origami, for all to see and speculate. If this were Machi, Kuroro would’ve been more inclined to manipulation. Shizuku was a perceptive thing, but she was also a forgetful one. Shuffling, Kuroro forced himself into a seated position, hands braced on either side of the bathtub. Under his fingers, it was nothing like the mosaic of Oito’s. 

But Kuroro had been the first to preach and the last to learn: not all thieves reaped quiet, rich lives. 

Some died. 

Died ugly and tired and gouged of pride. 

Anger reared its head, and Kuroro allowed his expression to darken in response. He’d kept it dormant for long enough, and all it had done was earn him an incomplete deck of cards and a whole lot of heartache. Kurapika had made sure of that—sold Kuroro the worst of himself and strung him into a roll of intention that was cruel at best and fatal at worst. 

_I should tell Shizuku._

The thought was hours in the making, locking when her hand slipped under his arm, helping Kuroro up. She was the ideal victim to burden—someone to tell, someone who wouldn’t pity or shame, and most importantly, someone who was bound to forget. Besides, he’d be naive to think she hadn’t considered his death before, _look at me._ Kuroro had come to terms with that inevitability the moment Kurapika brushed their lips and broke his trust. The look that christened their last interaction—a sum of absolute fury—had cemented it: Kuroro wasn’t just dying.

He was dying soon. 

_Hanahaki_ made it tough to tell if the bite in his chest was from tears to his right lung or the impossible stretch of his left lung, or the fact he’d almost saw this thing to success; _I almost had him._ Kurapika’s body had carved out the lines of his own, and for a heartbeat before wrecking and ruining them both, Kurapika had wanted him. _But you played me for a fool instead,_ used Kuroro’s attraction and his own as ammunition. There was little worse than looking a man in the eye before killing him, but _this_ —this contended. 

Seduction, that brand of unmerciful manipulation, _won_. 

Kuroro would’ve scoffed if scoffing wasn’t a risk. The grate would trigger another episode, force the top petals out of his overstuffed lung. He rested a hand to his chest, _you wanted me, too. Hanahaki_ was capital punishment, but it didn’t lie. The Maiden hadn’t grown in weeks, and if there was one virtue Kuroro was willing to give _hanahaki,_ it was certainty in death and desire. Kurapika had been humoring his own emotions, negotiating them. 

And knowing that brought Kuroro no comfort. 

_We’re both shit out of luck now—isn’t that right, Kurta?_

Because Kurapika would always run vendetta’s fault-lines over the softer edges of comfort. He would sooner be Kuroro’s killer and his gravedigger than ever warm his bed; Kuroro should’ve snipped it all at the bud, let things take their course without intervention, without bleeding initiative.

“Something happened, yes,” he agreed, after a moment too long to be anything but intentional. He looked down at his tattoo. “I’m dying.”

He caught her large eyes blinking. It was hard to miss them, even from his periphery. “What?”

“I’m dying,” Kuroro said, candid. “And Hisoka has nothing to do with it.”

_You did this to me, and I let you._

“That’s not good,” she mirrored his tone. “What can we do to stop it?”

Kuroro smiled. “Nothing.”

He shouldn’t have let Illumi mess with his head, he shouldn’t have sought Kurapika out. This was the steep price of arrogance. No amount of charm would override what Kuroro had done to Lukso that night. Kurapika—whether or not he’d wanted it as well—would’ve never let them have it. Would’ve never fallen under Kuroro, or into him, or anything of the sort. 

“Is this why you’ve been distant?” Shizuku spoke quieter. 

Kuroro licked blood from his teeth. “Something like that.”

“Is it _nen_?”

“Something like that.”

She was quiet. “Are you scared?”

Marbleized, Kuroro turned to her with his mouth hung. 

He closed it. “Something like that.”

Shizuku stared at him, long and hard, her shoulders square. Pressing palms to her knees, she stood and dusted herself. “Repetition’s not for smart people, _danchou_.”

//

Kuroro didn’t move from his spot until the door clicked behind Shizuku. There was an implicit order to get dressed and get out of the bathroom, and although Shizuku hadn’t used her words, the silence was enough to imply that much. The scene shaved his pride down to nothing; _memory’s a fickle thing with you—you remember all the things I wish you’d forget._ With grit teeth and a desperate need for distraction, Kuroro’s eyes took to the bathroom, assessing the damage. Clean edges were wiped down with blood, waxed in resin. Petals were wrung wet and dark on the tile. 

Cataloging it all—his wingspan smeared into the ground, the drying handprint on the sink—his eyes traced the grime and cement that carried his blood between the tiles. _Write in blood,_ he’d once preached, sitting his young, stupid self on a termite-webbed Louis XV armchair, _or don’t bother._ That had been the game, hadn’t it—the silent storm of getting what he wanted, at the reasonable cost of someone else’s life. 

Because death was unavoidable. 

_This—_ this was different. He’d imagined himself an Icarus, his end one of his own making. Maybe he’d go too far, have his head piked and his blood drained and his body made a myth. Perching his palm against the bathtub, Kuroro tried to push up only for his grip to slip. Blood had been a fascination of his—the way it looked staining his shirt, on the peak of a torn elbow—and it had never hit, whether it was his or some other poor fuck’s. Blood was a currency and Kuroro was just a tradesman. 

_What a bargain._

With a soft grunt, Kuroro pushed himself up and out of the tub; he didn’t look into the sink for fear of seeing what he knew was waiting. The sherpa was thrown onto the back of the toilet, haphazard in how it landed. The suite wasn’t Kuroro’s own, just a random place he’d broken into when the urge to heave became too strong to ignore. It had been a rush of nausea and pain, when he’d left Oito’s quarters. She’d watched him go—and although Kuroro’s eyes hadn’t met her own—the look she gave him was a flickering, fragile bit of confusion.

_So much for being fond._

There was a separate ache in there, too, and Kuroro wondered if that was what heartbreak felt like: heartburn. He never knew he had the capacity for it. 

Maybe he didn’t. 

With a dirty look, he slipped the sherpa back on. The edges were heavy with water, and for the sake of his sanity, Kuroro dismissed the connotations of that. _He fucked you up—_ Kuroro dragged the sleeve past the heel of his palm, hiding the bruises of almost-healed knuckles and the scar tissue where glass once sat. New stains had surfaced in their place, watermarking his grip on the sink— 

_And he fucked you over._

Kuroro didn’t need convincing. 

Not when he still remembered the rippling humility that shot through him—lust and realization both. Whether Kurapika had felt something for him didn’t matter anymore. Ambition and attraction had burned out in Kuroro’s chest, smothered to ember. _I should’ve known you were temporary._

He buttoned the coat, pretended like the threads hadn’t loosened where Kurapika’d so wonderfully _tore_ his way down. Out of sight, out of mind. It may not have worked when the seed first showed up, but Kuroro was intent on making it work this time. Whatever sat between them, like sunken sediment, had to wither and die before Kuroro would meet his maker. 

Once the Maiden was tucked under suede, composure returned. 

Trembling faded into gentle aftershocks of a memory, and Kuroro stared at his fingers until they stilled. _Momentum,_ that was what Pakunoda had said. The Spiders had come hurtling from oblivion, Kuroro would make sure it stayed that way. He wouldn’t be a victim of stagnation—not for Hisoka, not for Tserriednich. 

_Not for the Kurta._

Not the people nor their son. 

Running a filthy hand through his hair and feeling it knot, Kuroro walked out of the bathroom. The bedroom was silent, free of Shizuku’s shuffling. It was empty, a lucky truth he’d realized after breaking in; the bed was pushed up against the wall, unused, and the scent of sea-salt and dust overtook the small space. There was little to marvel at, though Kuroro managed brief comfort in the open portal. 

The sea breeze, as damning as it was, was refreshing. If Kuroro was going to end up with only one shredded lung, he’d enjoy whatever mouthfuls of breath the Whale had to offer.

“Shizu—” Kuroro tried, voice shattering too soon to finish the name. Kuroro wanted to claw into something, kill it. Closing his eyes, he attempted it again. “Shizuk—”

“Yo, _danchou.”_

He turned on his heel, towards the small path from entrance to bed where Shizuku stood herself. 

She pointed. “Was this always there?”

Kuroro’s aura stifled straight to silence. 

Graffitied onto the floor-length mirror in strokes of ink acrylic was a Victorian Eight of Clubs. The stains blocked out chunks of Shizuku’s reflection, one of her eyes, her chest, the small and curious gape of her mouth. Kuroro’s hysteria, once on elegant lockdown, settled onto his expression in a stuttering peak of brows and a delirious smile. The laugh never came; his eyes met Shizuku’s in the mirror. 

Any power he’d built inside himself drained from his veins. 

_Slaughter by appointment._

Her innocence was trapped in ignorance, and Kuroro was too far gone to tender her into anything else. It was one thing to experience grief when grieving—another, he came to the simmering realization, to mourn the living. 

Hisoka was the god of this game. 

Hisoka was nowhere to be found, and Kuroro didn’t know what he was doing, how to end him, how to fucking _stop—_

Kuroro didn’t want to play anymore. 

_This is slaughter by appointment—and you know there’s nothing I can do about it._

It was checkmate, vocal and explicit. The graffiti hadn’t been there when Kuroro burst into the room—when he’d stained the carpet with blood florets and a retched lung. Hisoka had done this under his nose, and Kuroro was fortune’s fool; he’d played Hisoka’s clown with flawless carelessness. Sometime between him passing out and Shizuku finding him, the magician had played a straight flush. 

Kuroro looked at her with a somber, surrendering smile, _I don’t know what to fucking do._ The fallacy of sunk-costs: a desperate Kuroro wanted to hold on to what he couldn’t, shouldn’t, because it was all that he stood for. He’d poured the marrow of his soul straight into his Spiders. 

And now, sorrow stretched his breath thinner. 

Kuroro walked the three barefoot steps it took to break his own heart and bring Shizuku into his chest. It was a sobering realization—he didn’t know how to save her, _and_ _that had been my only promise to you all._ Hisoka knew that too, made it clear that no matter the cost and how close the call, Kuroro was powerless. Breath catching on her hair, eyes closing, blood a bubbling riot of homemade madness—Illumi, _Hanahaki_ , Tserriednich—the corner he was in, hand to god, would be Kuroro’s undoing. 

His cosmic ruination. 

Shizuku’s body tensed in surprise before falling into him. The apology Kuroro mouthed against her temple was soulless, soundless, and when his eyes reopened, the one tear that left Kuroro was a sonnet soaked in wrath. 

_I’m going to eat you_ alive _._

//

Kuroro’s rage apexed. 

Throwing himself into the Kurta and that passive culture of sideline concern had been the first mistake. He’d been idle, docile, naive in every dictation of its meaning. The months had seen nothing from him but a lack of progress—nothing to forgive or validate how he’d sent Shizuku off to what he knew was a violent fate, made possible by his own inaction. Freedom and distraction were never options, and it took Hisoka looking him in the eye to cement it. Kuroro was going to end this. 

And he was going to end this fast. 

_If you won’t come for me—I will hunt you down like the swine you are._

Kuroro was going to skin him breathing, slaughter his way into Hisoka’s chest and make a cardiac out of the clown. _Hanahaki_ would pale in comparison to the fate Kuroro was set to deal him; blood will have blood, _and you’ll be wishing you stayed dead, you godless bastard._ Dropping onto the bed, Kuroro stared at the mirror from an angle. He couldn’t see his own reflection from this vantage point, and even if he could, Kuroro would never unsee Shizuku’s fragile collar, her blinking eyes. Mind turning indigo with storm, Kuroro cleared his expression. 

Stripped it of its emotion and humanity. 

If he had to relearn what it meant to be a king of the killing, he’d remind himself—teach himself, like he had all those years ago, when spinning sand in his image and burying the living and cutting bullets on an unholy city were pastimes of casual nature. If Kuroro couldn’t live in this world, he’d live in the history and horror that dragged behind him. Charity would learn that it had no room in this dialogue. 

Hisoka would, too. 

Slow and mechanical, Kuroro turned to the unlit burner phone by the bedside. 

A half-second before it went off. 

//

_Three weeks._ Three weeks of the Kurta texting him cryptic Hunter Association memos and Kakin security updates— _Re:_ _Delayed by tides, cic. i.e. Telav waters_ ; _Kakin Opens Ninth Ceremony: Magick(?)—_ nothing to supplement the way Kuroro tore the Whale’s tiers apart. Bodies fell as quickly as they had when he’d burned Lukso to the ground: the same scent of rot sans the glory that came with it. Instead, Kuroro was met with a hardline of _nothingness;_ his Spiders were nowhere to be found. 

In their place, came an ever-growing deck. 

One more card had surfaced—a Ten of Clubs Kuroro tore from under the skin of a noble’s forearm, her screaming a migraine in the making before Kuroro slammed her head into the wall, silencing her for life. A noble, if memory severed, named _Callisto._ It was a flawless fucking punchline. If Kuroro didn’t know what the numbers had stood for before, Hisoka had spoon-fed him Bonolenov’s killing—pissed on his leg with the audacity of it. 

There was a reason time lapsed between each card, and while Kuroro had no doubt his Spiders didn’t make for easy prey, a desolate part of him knew Hisoka’s reasoning a little better. _You’re planning them out, taking your time to serve detail,_ the burner vibrated in his back pocket and Kuroro paid it no mind. _You’re thinking them through, you’re making them into allusions—for me._ References he knew Kuroro would pick up on. If not at first glance, then at second. A glance too late. 

Kuroro’s chest was numb, nerves saturated with pain. _But now_ _you went and changed the game,_ his mind ignored the physical ache in favor of the mental marathon he was running, _because_ _Shizuku’s card showed up before you killed her._

Past tense had him aching. 

Unless, of course, this was just another way of granting Kuroro hope where there wasn’t any. That sounded likeliest, sounded most like Hisoka, like Illumi too. With a heavy heart, Kuroro made a mental checklist of those who remained. Names didn’t surface the way he expected them to, his mind tense and avoidant: _not enough._

Not enough of them were left. The space behind Kuroro’s eyes burned, the depression of his temples throbbing; he’d never experienced rage quite like this. The type that, if he hesitated, would swallow him—and if he kept his eyes open, would blind him instead. 

He walked across the Fifth’s mess hall in a beeline for the bar, ignoring the feeling of being followed. Kuroro’s frustration took on a life of its own when he threw his keycard and burner across the wood, dropping onto a barstool with the grace of a newborn fawn. Or maybe a freshly-shot fawn. Kuroro’s tongue pushed back blood and his nail etched at a notch in the mahogany counter, eyes deceptively vacant. 

_Someone's watching me._

How convenient. Illumi had taken to falling off the radar, so wonderfully, so _beautifully_ timed with Kuroro’s deterioration, and there was little Kuroro could do but play along. 

Because evidence was scarce. 

Those who knew anything even more so. There were only so many suspicious individuals Kuroro could kill before the Association decided to act. Not that they would ever land a hit on him— _I’d drown god before that happens_. Still, Kuroro couldn’t afford that attention, not right now. Hisoka’s fucking _obstacle course_ , his little arts-and-crafts labyrinth, was more than enough for the time being; Kuroro didn’t need external intervention, and he wouldn’t humor it if it came.

_Breathe._

He needed a plan.

When the burner vibrated again, Kuroro allowed his eyes to flick in its direction. The screen blinked, plastic humming against the wood. Kurapika had kept an artful distance, and Kuroro neither questioned that decision nor sought him out. The dozen articles stayed unread; he was too bitter to humor the idea that Kurapika might have something useful to add. Worse, that he knew where Hisoka was but was too petty to be forthcoming.

_If I find out you’re sending this shit in lieu of actual information—_

“So, you gonna grab somethin’?” the bartender spoke, crude and unimpressed. “There’s actually folk here that’re willin’ to pay for that chair.”

Kuroro’s gaze rolled up, looking from the cant in his fringe. The guy’s drawl hung passed a silver grill, gums blackened with tobacco. He was far too plump on alcohol to have been a meteorite—no, meteorites were wild-eyed, ribbed creatures—his jaw too soft, presence thinned by arrogant stupidity. Kuroro bit a smile, his courtesy trembling as he stood. _Ah, breathe._

_Don’t make a scene._

Palm to the face, he shoved the man’s head back into rails of liquor. 

Breaking bottles sounded into the room as tinnitus, sonic deafening, wooden racks snapping under the fever of the man’s fall. Kuroro’s form tightened into antipathy, the scene composite of sharp breaths and low whispers and disbelieving, documenting eyes. All gore and no glory, the bartender’s shattered form sat sliding, brow loosened with blood or _Bonnes Mares_. 

Dead on impact. 

What remained Kuroro’s self-restraint allowed him to watch, stood like stone, as one final bottle slid from its perch to land as a starburst of green-glass and froth. _I don’t—_ he didn’t blink, room motionless and his apathy vicious— _I don’t understand._ Observing the product of his broken composure was damning, and it wrought his body with unseen tension. Kuroro’s mind flew to binaries—names and numbers, tolls and miscalculation—working in laps behind his impassivity. 

_I don’t understand._

The bartender sunk further, coming to rest with a head tilted against splintered wood and shoulders speared with shard, a staccato of alcohol dripping from above. 

Silence lasted. 

Messy, clumsy, juvenile—chides suited for Phinks, Nobunaga. Kuroro’s eyes lowered to the length of the bar, dark wines rimming the uneven crests of wood. Instinct should not command intellect. Instinct has never commanded intellect. Instinct will never command intellect. _I am in control._ Unseeing eyes met his own, fogged with lifelessness and burned open with alcohol. _I am—_

_Ruined._

_You’ve ruined me._

_“My goodness,”_ a hand gripped Kuroro’s shoulder, nails digging into his coiled cuff when it swung him around, “ _what have you_ done _—”_

Kuroro grabbed her throat, slamming the woman onto a nearby table, his iron-toe rattling down by her head. He hovered, eyes cutting lines into familiar gentleness, the stray curl ringing her forehead and the dark crescents under her eyes. The hood had fallen back, and blunt as they were, Oito’s eyes were left glaring razors up at him. Hair that would’ve been held up in an elaborate knot was left to hook into her ears, face wiped of liquid-gold accents and pearl blush. A look ravaged by caution caged anger. 

_How humble,_ Kuroro’s fingers tightened, _you’ve got me homesick._

She clawed at his wrist, and Kuroro watched her scramble, his head cocked. He owed this woman nothing—owed Kurapika even less. With a quarter-breath, cheapened by his lungs, Kuroro used his free hand to slide a _Ben_ ’s out from his heel. He hadn’t relined it, not for a while, though he doubted she would survive whatever paralytic remained. 

_I could kill you,_ it would be easy. One nip, one line of trauma, would be enough to coax indigo into her lips. Enough to end everything before he’d separated knife from skin. _I could destroy him. He’d never see it coming—_ Kuroro’s heart stuttered, violent, _I could ruin_ everything _for you, Kurta._

The knife scraped down Oito’s clavicle, neck faltering under his hold. No one would stop him, too busy fossilized by fear or morbid fascination. _Queens’ mistakes are always fatal,_ because this wasn’t the Kakin ship, this wasn’t the Third or the Second—this was the Fifth, in all its volatile, imperial bloodlust. _I am in control,_ Kuroro’s knife lifted, slow and angled over his head, elbow bent for precision. 

_And I will_ ruin _you, Kurta._

He swung to a single, thundering pulse of the heart. 

And his eyes flashed. 

A white-hot sear speared his wingspan and tore forward into his ribcage, caught itself like a honed branding iron knocking rails of bone—unbidden, siphoning into the cavities of his heart. Kuroro, between that moment and the next, had swallowed glass: pain bred up from his abdomen to weld every wound and skinned knuckle into one furious, caustic holocaust that settled under his tongue. 

In a moment’s delirium—at the bite and ache and agony that numbed his left shoulder—Kuroro’s neck was shackled by a forearm. It drew him up and off a stricken Oito and back into a broad chest. He had neither the power nor the sobriety to fight it, and only vaguely registered the clamoring knife when it rolled out of his palm. Kuroro’s gaze locked and faded and re-focused onto the curl of Oito’s ankles across the table, body loosened and breath a shadow of what it should’ve been.

Kurapika had him by the heart in more ways than one. 

_“You’re one rude fuckin’ bastard, you know that?”_

The hiss was wet and angry against his ear, all too familiar in weight and aura. Kuroro’s chest threatened collapse, his breath halved once by _hanahaki_ and again by the hooked elbow. It took too long to grit his teeth into a snarl and bay the pain. 

No sound would leave him, no one would catch a fucking _whiff_ of Kuroro’s blood-stained vulnerability. 

Not this man. 

The forearm holding him was locked by another, forcing Kuroro’s head back onto a shoulder. Kuroro’s suffering manifested as a black look, eyes cutting to their corners. _Paladiknight,_ the guileless embodiment of the Kurta’s humanity, _god’s handmade fool,_ scowled down at him, and if there was one thing more damning than the absolute loss of control—it was this. 

_Saved by the foot soldier._

Kuroro would’ve died. 

Had that knife made a martyr of Oito—and it _would’ve_ , it would’ve cleaved her breastbone into a sheath, would’ve thawed her blood—Kurapika’s _Judgement_ was set to deal him a matching blow. The _nen_ chain sat pulsing in his chest, tight and unforgiving, as though he couldn’t be trusted enough to have it loosened yet. Pride and pain were shoved down his throat and Kuroro was forced to swallow them along with the smell of antiseptic; _you’ve got gods eating crow, Kurta._

_Ever the damn pedant._

The scent stung his charred nose, lining a burn down a still-tender and resin-slicked throat. Kuroro’s fingers touched the coil of Paladiknight’s forearm without making to remove it; he was different this time around, aura wrung with practice and goodwill. 

Wound with reckless courage. 

_Emitter._

Quick to temper, quicker to forgive. 

Kuroro’s rage begged him to vault, force Paladiknight off and onto his knife, but the hysteria settled at the man’s scoff. “Who in hell treats a lady like that, huh, you ugly son of a bitch?” 

A violent Kuroro stared back. 

Oito’s panting cut through the tense moment. She sat trembling in awe from her defensive crawl across the table, fingers fanned across her collar. What hair hadn’t remained tucked in a braid, spiraled to frame her face. Expression colored blue in disbelief, she stared back at both of them. 

The grip on him slackened. 

Paladiknight’s incredulity was tangible. “Your _majes—_?” 

Oito was quick to tap fingers against her mouth, urging him into silence. A crowd had gathered, curious and vulturelike, waiting for the spill of something other than whiskey. Kuroro’s jaw locked, his faculty for stoicism waning; it was fortunate the Fifth would be the first tier to drown—if only for their own sake. Kuroro wasn’t half as merciful as the ocean. 

Paladiknight’s hold released when realization settled in full. He rushed over to Oito’s side, landing a cautious touch to the underside of her arm. Kuroro’s body swayed, and it took him a shameful moment to regain balance, knuckles catching blood from the corner of his mouth. He hadn’t realized how reliant he’d been on the man to keep him upright; Kurapika had done a number on him.

Blood pulsing under his skin in a disjointed rhythm, Kuroro cut a look sideways. The crowd took the warning, making off with stifled disappointment. His eyes followed where his body couldn’t, until the last of them fell to their liquor again. The commotion saturated the room still, though, in those fleeting gazes Kuroro caught nipping at his shoulder. 

Being watched—the feeling of it alone—was humiliating. A thief’s hell-threat.

Kuroro allowed the thought to warm his gut, focus rededicated to the pair in front of him rather than the eyes around him. Paladiknight was different, as the Kurta had been—shoulders wide and rotator cuffs rounded with strength. A red cross sat over one, browned; this wasn’t a new development. _Ah,_ Kuroro watched him bring Oito to her feet, movements gentle, _what use is raw power to a man of the scalpel, good doctor?_

His eyes lidded. 

_You’re making this too easy._

Paladiknight’s _nen_ required it. Yorkshin had seen the man strong— _but not this strong._ Kuroro saw the subtle changes: the width of the neck, the tension where thigh met knee, the density carried in his calves. Somewhere, during the few years Kuroro had spent dealing dice with his demons, this man had found his footing. 

And Kuroro had lost his. 

“I don’t—” Paladiknight spoke into Oito’s bubble, a hushed whisper. “Why are you here, what has he—” He stopped and cut an accusatory glare in Kuroro’s direction, expression a fold of rage and panic. 

“Where’s Kurapika?” he bit, composure crumbling. “What the hell did you do—I swear, if you did _anything—_ ”

“I do plenty,” Kuroro’s eyes strayed then stayed at the curling fist Paladiknight leashed at his side. “You’ll do well to be a little more specific.”

“What are you, a _genie?_ ” Paladiknight spat, taking an ill-advised step in Kuroro’s direction. What asinine recklessness; Kurapika did a number on many people, it seemed. Oito stopped him with a hand to the bicep. He looked down at her. “Did this clown—” _Clown?_ “—do something to Kurapika? Is that why you’re here on your ow—”

Kuroro’s head snapped sideways. 

Paladiknight’s breath bated. 

The flare was unmistakable—a charring, defensive _nen_ that ran the length of the hall and the far wall, shooting up into their heels. The Whale’s foundation strained with a whine and a tilt. Adrenaline running parallel to alarm, Kuroro’s joints keyed.

_Machi._

_//_

_“Wait!”_

Kuroro took off. 

Sliding under a table feet-first, he escaped the hand Paladiknight aimed at his collar. His boots plowed through the table’s legs, a violent show that broke them and numbed his own, before Kuroro rose into a run. Oito’s shriek didn’t resonate, didn’t slow him or his heartbeat. Kuroro’s chest was a war-drum, struck in a stiff and unsteady rhythm. Kuroro’s heart—a pacific, tempered thing—had never played this loud, not when he’d had knives to the neck or the tower of Silva Zoldyck over him. 

_Because this is my fault._

This was his doing. It was Kuroro’s choice to put Hisoka in the ground, his choice to accommodate that depravity. A Spider dying by force of a fight, by _freedom,_ was an honor—a mourned, but celebrated honor. There was nothing honorable about being a hunter’s game. _And I did this._ His heartbeat turned breath to pant, lung working well into overtime. 

Any rational thought dissolved into a monochromatic rush, and he let the remnants of Machi’s _nen_ feed his instinct, navigate his momentum. 

Her aura hitched at odd intervals, far weaker than its initial misfire. Kuroro hammered his way past people, elbows poised and chafed to hell as he slammed them into throats and ribs. Predacious—violent and unhinged, an urgency he’d never quite experienced and never wanted to experience ever again. It wasn’t enough to stop his body from falling into speed, taking turns he didn’t have the time to remember for recognition’s sake. 

Faint as it was, he felt Oito’s chase behind him, untracked and desperate, Paladiknight following in a spill of frustration. The thought of them was ordered to swift execution as Kuroro flung his body sideways into a crash-bar double door. Stumbling, he caught himself on a stairwell, dark for all save the red edge light burning its sides. Kuroro couldn’t see where it led, only that it led down and he followed, letting gravity take each of his steps lower, faster. 

Cyanide and gasoline. 

Stale diesel fogged his sinuses, the smell getting stronger the closer he got to the bottom. Three turns, a hall, another stairwell. Too underlit to tell for sure, but the eternity he’d been descending told Kuroro there couldn’t have been more than two, three stair-sets left. Patience lost, he grabbed the guardrail and threw himself down the gap between floors.

Landing in a three-point, palm open against the ground and his wrist near-shatter, Kuroro was right. He was right and he was choking, lung flat and airtight; head snapping up, his eyes dilated, _go_. He slid his foot back and tore off into a sprint, flanked by heat exchangers and thrusters. Sweltering—whirring, _loud_ —heat waxed his clavicle, hair plastered to the sides of his face. 

_The engine room._

Exertion clawed scores into his chest, effort straining each exhale. Every patch and burn and cut was an intimate reminder that death had a tongue of fire down his throat, _I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do, Hisoka._ When another of Machi’s energy surges tided against him, _close,_ so close, Kuroro knocked his body into a faster run. 

Twisting into the engine chamber—an open space, cubes of machinery squaring it off—he watched a kneeling Machi decapitate a man in a flash of thread and faltering _nen_. 

Kuroro’s breathing eclipsed hers.

The body thumped to the ground, head rolling to a stop against one of the dozen strewn across the room. Kuroro was stoned on adrenaline, on a gaping deficit of oxygen, but even then, he gauged the bodies were more than ten fingers could tally. He didn’t spend time trying to count. 

His eyes didn’t, _couldn’t_ leave Machi. 

She was tangible destruction: a body caved, knees wide and head hung. Blood met sweat at her temple, a delta mapping down to seal an eye and drip off her nose. Her hair was stiff with gore, the red lights darkening pink to plum. 

Lip wrung with resentment, she brought a hand down onto the wound at her pectoral. 

_“Machi.”_

Kuroro used the last of his energy to sound the name. 

The grip Machi had on her shoulder tightened, a swallow stringing her neck. Tilting a head in his direction, she blinked away the blood and fatigue. “Ah, _danchou._ You’re not dead.”

“I’m not.”

_Barely._

The air remained dense and stale, hard to bring into his chest and harder still to stomach. Kuroro licked the dryness from his lips, allowing his heaving to settle into something quiet even if he couldn’t control its speed. His spine throbbed, his deliberate landing coming with  uncontrolled for collateral ; months ago, he’d have ended up with a bloody knee, a score or two to the hand. Tongue grazing his upper lip, Kuroro ignored the ache in his elbow and took a measured step into the space. 

Machi stuttered her own exhausted inhale. “I’m glad.”

Lifting his foot from a puddle of blood, Kuroro stared down at the drip. “Likewise.”

They met eyes for a brief moment before Machi tore her own away, angling her frown to the crescent-wound carved into one body’s throat. The movement was a steady turn away that told Kuroro all he needed to know about her state of mind. Her inexpressive nature was martyred in favor of anger, and although it was built to be hidden, resentment bled into her.

Allowing her that moment of recalibration, Kuroro studied the area. _Fresh kills_ , faceless and unrecognizable, the bodies all stunk of iron rather than rot. Kuroro didn’t realize he’d been looking for a familiar trace of _nen_ up until he couldn’t find it. Hisoka wasn’t there. 

And hadn’t been there. 

Disappointed as he wanted to be, Kuroro wasn’t. 

_He’s my kill._

He took in mangled limbs, all too reminiscent of Shalnark’s face back in suite forty-four. Kuroro’s aura waved and expanded, tiding the room. A dead-look in a deadman’s eye wasn’t new; it was the glaze, the stained-glass look that gave them away. And like the needle buttered into a familiar rose tattoo, Kuroro found the recognition he’d been looking for. 

_Cha-R._

With unsettling precision, his eyes steered to Machi. 

_“Finally—”_

Oito’s presence was a refreshing wave of lavender, interrupting in the gentle way it always was. Kuroro’s throat tightened, not granting her or Paladiknight’s skidding arrival attention. Machi’s distant glare shouldered the weight of his attention. 

It took a fraction of a second for Oito to weather into something small. “Oh sweet, good goddess.”

_A sight unbefitting of a queen, no?_

“What,” Kuroro punctuated his words with a steep, cliff-fall baritone, “is all this?”

Machi’s eyes rose to meet him, saturated in strength but not defiance. “ _Needlemen_.”

“ _Needlemen?”_

“It’s what he called them.”

Kuroro stepped over a body, walking in her direction. He cast a head to the side with his boot, eyeing the clean line of needles dipping into skull-base. “And this is by Illumi’s design.”

“It is.”

“Why?”

“Why he designed them that way?” Machi looked startled. Sniffing past blood, she shrugged her good shoulder. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Why were they after you?” his heel slammed back into the head, forcing the body onto its front behind him. Kuroro couldn’t imagine Hisoka choosing _this_ over a thrill killing, and he certainly couldn’t imagine Illumi pitting his arsenal against the mafia just to chase Machi—those were separate agendas, neither of which suited his operations. _Something isn’t adding up._ Kuroro’s mind sounded several questions at once, translating into his intensity. 

His stare dropped to her chest. 

Machi held her silence. 

From his periphery, he caught Paladiknight move forward. Kuroro put the movement to death, flashing a look over his shoulder which had the man stepping back. _An inch closer, and I slaughter you._ Kuroro wouldn’t hesitate; _I don’t care if you’re the Kurta’s only node of sanity._ Paladiknight took the hint, scowling. He kept a step ahead of Oito—as though that would shield her if Kuroro decided to act. 

If the face-bleaching disgust didn’t stop her heart first. 

Ignoring the sight, Kuroro turned back to Machi and closed the remaining steps between them. Hovering over her, he let his aura and expression calm, dipping into a crouch when she made to look up. Her eyes were charged, impossibly blue even in the grunge-lit space. Reaching for her shoulder, Kuroro’s arm stalled when she flinched. 

After the look passed, he touched fingers to her wrist. 

A tacit command, obeyed.

Clenching around the wound one final time, blood sliding between her knuckles, Machi let her hand drop. Her robe fell where she’d been holding it up, and with it, Kuroro’s remaining stoicism and Paladiknight’s hissed inhale. 

Over the Spider spanning from breastbone to shoulder, sat a branded and bleeding-hot Three of Hearts. 

Kuroro’s crouch fell to a seat, legs open to flank her.

_That’s what the puppets are for,_ the symbol was fresh and forced on the upper curve of her exposed breast, iron-made, _the leg work._

_The delivery._

Hisoka knew where her Spider had been and Kuroro didn’t need to ask how; it was no secret. Machi’s frustration, he realized, wasn’t frustration: it was the shame of miscalculation, the knowing of it. Desolation made a brand of its own inside him, black paint and bedroom mirrors coming to mind as a swing of melancholy. “Machi, this is—”

“I know,” her mouth was tight with rage. _I know what this is._

Without hesitation, Machi grabbed the slit edges of her robe and tore the fabric open, clearing it off her body. Kuroro looked on in calm—a perfect foil to Paladiknight’s growing horror—as Machi manifested her thread, pressing a cat’s cradle to her chest with an inhale.

And in one fluid pinch, flayed the layer of skin clean off. 

Machi made no sound, the only evidence of pain tensing her neck. The abrasion was the size of Kuroro’s palms crossed, raw and beading with blood. Gruesome and massive and no longer marked by a Spider or set of Hearts. The rim was smoked in pink, Machi’s thumb brushing against it to test for pain; when her hand dropped, the verdict was silent. 

Kuroro could relate. 

It didn’t take long for a once frozen Oito to thaw into movement. Kinship, maternal instinct, naiveté— there was a compendium of reasons that could’ve drove her to run towards them, skirt in hand, but Kuroro didn’t try to name them and he didn’t try to stop her. Oito’s footsteps clicked to a gradual stop by Machi, before she dropped to her side, cautious intent to every shift of her body. Kuroro eyed the interaction, the distraught and nearly angry twist of Oito’s mouth, the way her hand hovered in the space between them—wanting to afford a comfort she couldn’t understand.

Machi stared back, stoic and unwelcoming. 

Her touch never landed. 

Oito swung on her axis into a stand, fixing her attention onto Paladiknight. The equilibrium she maintained was a cocktail of perfect poverty and perfect wealth: the poise of a thief and a queen’s regality, nailed to the lift of her chin. “You _have_ to.”

Paladiknight didn’t oblige the demand, still banked against the wall with his arms crossed and his eyes coring Kuroro. He looked tapped out of tolerance, knuckles whitened with tension. Vitriol slanted his hips and ticked at his brow, and if Kuroro was a superstitious man, he could’ve sworn he felt it claw at his nape. What he did want to believe, however, was that it was heat and exertion powdering Paladiknight’s nose, rather than the arson of unchecked anger. 

Kuroro was in no mood to brawl. 

“You have to _,”_ Oito insisted, “ _please._ ”

_Mercy doesn’t suit royalty,_ Kuroro’s face was devoured by vacancy. _Doesn’t suit thieves either._

_How unfortunate._

Paladiknight conceded with a sigh and a sunken head. “Goddamn it.”

Unlike Oito’s urgency, he kept his strides long and patient, eyes never once leaving Kuroro. It was a challenge to stop him, maybe a hope that Kuroro would. Much to Paladiknight’s visible fury, Kuroro stared back at him with dumb-passing indifference. Medicinal help was an advantage, never a necessity. Machi had been through worse and he’d seen her through it countless times. Spiders didn’t ask for help. 

Not in life, not in death. 

But coincidences didn’t happen—not like this, and when Paladiknight was close enough to curse the damage, Kuroro’s eyes narrowed. _What were you doing on the Fifth?_

_What_ —his eyes flashed to Oito then back— _were_ you _?_

Oito moved out of the way, providing Paladiknight with the space he needed to sink to his knees, messenger bag rolled over onto his lap. Any loose strand of hesitation he might’ve had became knotted between his brows as focus, hand reaching to shuffle into the bag. Kuroro couldn’t place what he was muttering, syllables too strung with tension, too foreign. Whether it was medicinal jargon or the dead drawl of his mother tongue, Kuroro didn’t give a shit. 

_He’s—actually doing this._

What Kuroro did catch sounded a lot like _bad idea_ on repeat. 

He curled one leg back to make room, gaze flicking over Paladiknight in a single, calibrated once-over. Kuroro’s chest stung, a sudden, biting pain drawing up his esophagus before fading; _you suit each other well, you and—him._ Men shouldering guilt that wasn’t theirs to shoulder, using it in the best and worst ways conceivable. Kurapika’s grief made him more deadman than mourner, had him licking the broken glass of Kurta heritage like he’d find virtue in the punishment. But virtue wasn’t what he found, and the knife Kuroro carried in his chest was testament to that failure. Grieving was no solace for someone like Kurapika. 

Not when he'd turned himself into the very tragedy worth grieving. 

Kuroro’s eyes traced Paladiknight’s learned movements; they were deliberate as he dug around, so unlike the brash attitude he readily put on display. This man carried his own guilt, a different type that played him for a fool and made him good. Paladiknight used guilt to his moral advantage, whether he knew it or not. 

_You’re the type to tackle tragedy on the sidewalk, push it into traffic and walk away a better man._

Kuroro’s mind ran as he watched him, the crane and coil of his neck, the bolt of worry nailing his brows. _I don’t understand._ After a tense half-minute, Paladiknight managed gauze and a flask of something dark out of his bag. 

Machi’s guard, exhausted as it was, shot. 

“It’s antibacterial,” he snapped at her, challenging. “I shouldn’t even be— _gods_ , just—let me look at least, for sanity’s sake.”

Machi glared. 

“Let him,” Kuroro murmured, pushing back on the heels of his hands before getting up and falling back. He let his thoughts dissolve. “That was reckless.”

“It was necessary.”

Kuroro didn’t argue. 

Machi obliged his order. Pythonic she eyed Paladiknight’s movements, shifting her shoulders to face him. Their proximity was negotiated, governed by her and suffocated by caution. When Paladiknight reached to angle Machi’s face, she jerked away, slate eyes in ignition. She completed the movement herself. 

Kuroro placed himself in the background, leaning against an engine unit. Despite his misleading build, Paladiknight’s touch was gentle, versed, and Kuroro caught the steadiness of his hand as he attended the wound. Perfect calibration, no hesitation. Had it not been for his jagged-edged aura—nervous, alive—Kuroro would’ve mistaken him for someone with experience. 

Sick of the silence, Kuroro broke it. “These are _Cha-R.”_

“They are,” Machi spoke without looking away from Paladiknight’s wrist.

“And the fact they are is no coincidence.”

“Naturally.”

“Speculate,” Kuroro tipped his head, flashing a quick side-eye to Oito. She hadn’t regained composure, bathed white in disgust and disbelief. Color bloomed only in a necklace around her throat; the bruising kept his attention for several seconds too long. Head turning back to Machi, Kuroro’s eyes took longer to follow. 

“Not too sure,” she bit through the sting, lip raising in a warning shot at Paladiknight. Kuroro had to commend him; the kid matched it without a beat of hesitation. “I guess he needed something resilient, if we’re the targets.” 

Kuroro hummed, agreeing. _But there’s more to it, there has to be._ “Are they lucid when attacking?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dead before the needle, by the needle, or not at all until killed?”

“I don’t—” she hissed a breath through her teeth, ignoring the command to _stay still, goddamn it,_ “—know. I killed them without thinking about it. Didn’t test it.”

“That’s a shame,” Kuroro conceded, eyes narrowing in thought. _Needlemen_ were agents that obeyed. Illumi’s aura, as far as Kuroro could surmise, had two functions—disguise and marionette. He brought fingers to his mouth, thinking; the latter veered too close to _Black Voice_ for comfort. More dangerous still, was the fact Illumi didn’t have to be present. 

_Then again,_ Kuroro’s mind yawned open with distraction, gaze left unfocused on the mafia leader’s mangled body. Black Voice _had autopilot, didn’t it?_

But Shalnark needed to be present for the puppet to follow a multilayered command, autopilot meant just that: a broad order to be followed. _Illumi’s is—too elaborate,_ this was too intricate a demand for _Black Voice,_ too tailored and well-executed. Shalnark’s _hatsu_ wouldn’t translate into a setting like this, not with its blind delirium. _Shalnark’s victims were easy to kill, placeholders._

Looking at Machi’s shattered state, Kuroro couldn’t imagine _Needlemen_ being rubber hose puppets. Which meant the choice of mafia wasn’t a coincidence, not if Illumi had a way of tapping into their individual capacities. Kuroro couldn’t cross-reference his information, and with no way of knowing whether or not it was true, frustration became a grating tightness at his jaw. _But if I’m right—_

“Do you think they were out to kill?” he asked, voice hollow. 

Machi stared at him for a moment too long. “No.”

Kuroro looked her over, slow and intentional, grazing each injury. _My conclusion as well,_ “I’m inclined to disagree.” _But what makes you say so._

“They—” her expression darkened into something solemn and resentful, “they weren’t set to kill.”

Kuroro’s eyes were dry ice, irises smoking. “Explain.”

“I know they weren’t,” she swallowed a knot, and the flash of frustration across her face was something Kuroro elected to ignore, “because Hisoka told me they weren’t.”

Violence licked the air. 

Kuroro’s expression didn’t thaw or shift, even when his mind became spectral. 

“Hisoka told you.”

“He did.”

“When?” with a void voice and wide eyes, Kuroro’s hostility was directed more at the facts than the figure speaking them. The sound of it was enough for Paladiknight to straighten his back. 

“He found me, I didn’t find him,” she admitted, her own anger left unveiled. “Approached me weeks ago. We fought.”

“You lost.”

She said nothing. 

“Or he didn’t want to kill you,” Kuroro gave a wry scoff, expressionless.

“He did—does,” Machi breathed through her nose, giving up on entirely Paladiknight’s work in favor of Kuroro’s address. “He was being depraved, said he’d find me when he was done with you.”

“Oh?” Kuroro’s brow sharpened, palms resting against the burning engine behind him. Heat stung the cuts on his palm and made his knuckles throb. “Thought I’d be the last one he came for.”

“I suppose it’s my fault,” Machi flashed him a tired, cynical smile. “Told him I’d hunt him down if he ever managed to kill you.”

“Impossible,” Kuroro dismissed, flippant. _As if._ He made a point of stepping on a corpse’s clavicle, bone giving with a dense, echoing crunch. Oito slapped a palm over her mouth, looking away. “And what about these?”

“Promised me a _branding_ ,” Machi bit, and the word was proxy for _humiliation._ Hisoka had been out to humiliate her, and as far as all three of them were concerned, he’d managed it. 

Kuroro didn’t move his foot. “Your taste in lovers is suspect.”

The chain in his chest tightened.

Before Machi could manage a response, Paladiknight shifted and threw his messenger bag closed, coming to a stand. The blood patched through the gauze, fabric too thin to deal with the wound. Machi had carved into herself, she hadn’t scraped skin; Kuroro couldn’t imagine a quick fix being good enough. 

In a smooth movement, Paladiknight shrugged the lab coat off his shoulders, expression stiff when he held it out to her. “Take it.”

Machi’s surprise came as a small gape of the mouth. She looked at Kuroro, deferring until he gave her the green light. 

Kuroro stared back, silent. 

With a breath, she touched fingers to Paladiknight’s knuckles before taking the coat with a hum. “How odd.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped. 

“You’re a good man.”

_He is,_ and it landed in Kuroro’s gut like liquid lead—thick, choking. This was Kurapika’s chosen company. _And I’m not._ He watched Paladiknight’s mouth hang for a moment before he regained his footing, indignant. His words were a rush caught between broken patience and anger, between Oito and Kuroro. “Okay, I’m done. That’s it. Just what the _hell_ is going on?”

Pushing off the engine with his hips, Kuroro ignored the question. “Take her to your medical wing—treat her, I’ll cover any necessary costs.”

Machi’s voice rang sharp. “I can do it myself.”

“You’re in no position to try,” he came to a stand beside Paladiknight, looking down at the displeased spear of her frown. “And I don’t want you to use your _nen_ for the remainder of this trip.”

Her mouth hung. “I—why not?”

“Because I’m going to find Hisoka,” Kuroro intoned. “I don’t want him pinpointing anyone else’s location.”

“But—”

“This isn’t a dialogue I’m about to have,” Kuroro didn’t use his position often, not in moments like these. But their coin had long since burned a hole in his pocket and fallen out, and Kuroro was not one to retrace his steps. No, democracy was abandoned at the docks. “You’ve had your chance. Don’t let frustration cloud your judgment.”

“ _Danchou.”_

“Pick your battles wiser,” he cut, a finality to him that had her form sagging. “Pride comes before the fall.”

Paladiknight scoffed, crossing his arms. “Hot-take there, _Lucifer_.”

Kuroro turned to him, coldness resting all its weight in his gaze. “I believe I asked you to treat her.”

“You didn’t ask for jackshit, buddy, and I don’t do demands,” Paladiknight brought them closer, wielding his height for intimidation. His eyes were coal, lit hotter by a scathing baritone. “Give me _one_ damn reason to help a bastard like you—”

“He’s helping Kurapika.”

It was swift, syllables strung, but as guilty as Oito looked when their heads snapped in her direction, she didn’t look regretful. Determination broke her brows lower, mouth pursed, full of words she was ready to spill—words Kuroro was most certainly not ready for the room to hear. 

_“What?”_ Paladiknight’s nose was an inch from Kuroro’s, the word landing rage-warmed onto his face. 

“Uh, _danchou?_ ” Machi looked up at him, Paladiknight’s indignation seeming to pour down onto her. “The chain-user?”

Kuroro refused to elaborate. 

When he did nothing to keep Oito from speaking, either, she continued. “I—I don’t know what for, but I know they’re working together. Kurapika wouldn’t do it unless he really needed him. I think he does.”

Paladiknight looked one, two seconds from a stroke. “Do you know who this man _is_ —”

“I do.” Oito’s eyes were heavy in Kuroro’s periphery. 

Paladiknight fell back, looking more lost and insulted than he had since their initial encounter. “You’re—why in the goddess’ good name would he work with the man who _razed his home—_ ”

“Take it he doesn’t tell you much.” Feeling malicious, Kuroro smiled a tight, serpentine stretch of the lips. “Pity.” 

Paladiknight’s wince was the crack he was looking for. 

_Did I touch an exposed nerve?_

_Allow me to rip it out._

“Do it for him, good doctor,” Kuroro pat a palm onto the man’s shoulder. “For _Kurapika.”_

It was the name that did it. Paladiknight’s lividity thickened the air, and whatever voice he managed was low and dangerous. “Do a damn thing to him, and I’ll kill you myself.”

Kuroro heard his fair share of empty ultimatums—from men in car-trunks, at gun-point, kissing knife’s edge; this wasn’t one. _Just how far would you go for him, would you lose your life?_ Kuroro would kill him, if the need arose, though it didn’t stop the wave of interest. The longer he looked at Paladiknight, the more of his aura numbed the room, the more Kuroro understood what Hisoka had been on about when he’d waxed possessive about the Kurta’s group. 

He must have found them valuable for a reason—and while Kuroro knew Kurapika’s worth, Paladiknight was only just proving his own. 

Unblinking, Kuroro droned. “Are you threatening me?”

“Abso- _fucking_ -lutely,” Paladiknight grit, “I’ll kill you dead, I’ll kill you quiet. You don’t scare me.”

_I can._

Kuroro’s voice was toneless, matching his expression. “Call this my redemption hour.”

“Men like you don’t get a redemption hour,” Paladiknight got closer, forcing Kuroro to angle his head to the side. “You don’t get an ovation for not being the spawn of the devil for a day.”

Kuroro’s eyes lid, looking from their corners.

“When the likes of you end up in the ground, do me a favor,” the snarl was cutting. “ _Roll_ , eternally.”

“ _Leorio,_ ” Oito chastised, and as half-hearted as it was, it did what it was meant to do. Paladiknight stepped back, turning his back to Kuroro. He crouched by Machi, who’d slipped the coat over her bare, blood bathed torso. 

He tossed the words over his shoulder. “I’m going to do this, and it isn’t for you or your blood money.”

Kuroro scoffed, looking off. “For him, then?”

“For _me_ ,” Paladiknight hissed, his arm an extended platform for Machi to use if she chose to. She didn’t. “Because I know who I am and why I do what I do. I’m a doctor—not a fucking judge.”

Without checking to see if Machi was following, Paladiknight walked out with one last look to Oito. Kuroro felt Machi’s stare eat away at him; he didn’t meet her eyes, staring at the marrow of an open neck. He didn’t have to meet her eyes to hear the judgment in her silence. An epilogue of disappointment, of names read aloud. 

_Pakunoda._

_Uvogin._

A moment bordering on eternity passed before Oito spoke. “I suppose you’re obliged to go back now.”

To Kurapika. 

“I’m not obliged to do anything,” Kuroro clipped, “If that’s why you came, I suggest you take your leave, _exalted_.”

She was silent for a moment, and while Kuroro didn’t look to see if the newfound composure returned color to her cheeks, it was there in her voice. There was a soft, cruel calm to her unspoken accusations. “I can sense him on you, you know. Even if you don’t think much of me.”

Kuroro’s eyes lifted. 

She didn’t look offended, her face clear of everything, including the crucifixion she once swore him. Kurapika would’ve never disclosed the extent of their dealings, the hows and whys, but Oito was shrewd; that much Kuroro knew—that much he was promised. But while she was less forgiving, _I don’t think I’ve broken your trust quite yet._ Kuroro’s neck straightened. 

“You’re right, I don’t,” he admitted, unimpressed. “For a meteorite, you’re rattled and you’re compliant. It’s strange to see someone so afraid of dead men,” Oito cringed at the condescension, not that it stopped him. “I promise, as of now, they’re as harmless as they’ll ever be.”

“How dare you,” incredulity tore at her. “I’ve seen death and I’ve seen disease—I have not seen _slaughter_.” 

“I wasn’t aware there was a difference,” Kuroro shot back. 

“For men like you?” she sniffed, her voice walking a tightrope between disgust and offense. “I wouldn’t imagine it.”

Kuroro scoffed, giving her a patronizing shake of the head. “You don’t know men like me.”

“You’re right,” she tossed him a bitter smile, “because they don’t exist.”

_Because I’m the worst of my kind._

Kuroro’s jaw pulsed. “What do you want?”

“You may hide your emotions, Mr. Lucifer,” Oito regained her poise, her fucking _regality,_ “Mona-Lisa smiles and all, but you can’t hide Kurapika’s _nen_ , not from me. I know how it feels, how it works. I might not know you—” it was damning “—but I know _him_.”

Kuroro’s chest throbbed. “I feel nothing for that man but resentment.”

“My judgment may be faulty,” her stare was empty and unyielding. “But I took you for a better liar.”

Without waiting on a response, she knotted a hand into her skirt and faced the exit, offering him the vulnerable expanse of her back. “Now, I’m a queen and this is neither safe nor appropriate.” 

She cast a dark look over her shoulder. “Escort me.”

//

For some reason, he obeyed. 

Reaching past his hubris, Kuroro walked Oito through the Whale’s tiers in silence. Not that she’d needed guarding, the hood she’d propped back over her head made her inconspicuous enough. No suit spared a look at them. Oito’s request hadn’t been out of necessity—but power, a display of authority and an open invitation to talk. Kuroro didn’t take it, anchoring his tongue and minding to keep his steps quiet. His head was numb, breath coming with the taste of something sour. 

_Blood._

He wiped his boots before reaching the Kakin ship. 

The feeling of being followed returned, stirring the air with fragrance. It was a distinct presence, its owner skilled in keeping close to walls. Kuroro couldn’t pay it mind if he tried, eyes vacantly staring at the back of Oito’s head. He wasn’t built to chase anyone. If someone sought him out, so be it. If someone wanted him dead— _they’re welcome to surprise me._

His attention drifted, a haze of Machi and _Needlemen_ and fraying thoughts of Kurapika. Frustration was a thorn Kuroro couldn’t pull out of his side, lodged deeper with every step he took. Deep enough to be the nail in his coffin. 

Frustration, idleness. 

Kuroro’s blinks were slow. 

Any information he had was thanks to a third party— _Machi, Kurapika, Illumi—_ and he wasn’t sure which was more damning: his complacency, or the fact that with or without this information, he was helpless. 

Hisoka was a master illusionist, Kuroro knew—but what Kuroro hadn’t known was just how well Illumi’s powers complemented that fact. He hadn’t controlled for any of this. For falling for it. He was supposed to be the one who hardened blood with a look, who welded intellect and strategy out of a bad situation and walked out unscathed. 

Kuroro strode behind Oito with heavy feet. 

He’d dropped so much into the ocean, lost so much of himself to the Whale. 

_To him._

Kuroro was the Spiderhead—the protector, the leader, the man who guided the Gene’i Ryodan—and somewhere along the way, he’d failed every role entrusted to him with stupid magnificence. He might as well have been a fucking spectator to their deaths. A gas-station king who live-streamed Vesuvius as it blew. 

_How much angrier can I get,_ his gaze dulled, _how far is there to go from here?_

Machi’s disappointment had blunted the edges of his anger, humbled it. She would never shame him for Kurapika, whether or not she knew what _hanahaki_ was. 

But she should. 

She _should_ shame him.

And that was all there was to it. 

They came to a stop in front of Oito’s rooms. Her cloak was folded over one forearm, and had been since they’d reached the entrance of the Kakin boat. Kuroro blinked out of his distraction. With a painful inhale, his eyes dropped closed. _Gods._

They reopened with a pull of the lid.

Oito made no move to open the doors. The wrinkles in her dress alluded to her absence, stained at the knees and ankles. There was no cloak to veil her earlier tension—but there was no need for it. Tension didn’t exist between her shoulders anymore; they sloped with surrender, an acceptance of tragedy before it happened. After a moment, she spoke. 

“You asked me why I came to find you,” it was hushed, like she knew this was a dangerous conversation. 

Kuroro hummed, too exhausted to muster the energy to respond. Tremors returned to his wrist, and the vibration spoke to injury and restlessness. He’d pushed himself further than his body allowed for.

“I’m not sure what happened,” Oito’s throat swelled with a swallow he couldn’t see. The stakes softened her voice. “What you told him that night, what you did—”

“What _he_ did,” Kuroro’s throat caught up with the ache and scratched. 

“What either of you did,” she conceded, breath rushing over the words. Oito kept her shoulders level, forehead falling to the door, and pressed a sigh into the wood. “He’s being _reckless._ ”

“So he is,” Kuroro replied, disinterest flattening his syllables. “That’s both unfortunate and none of my concern.”

A moment’s silence weight between them. 

Then Oito swallowed that, too. 

“Lie yourself into a stupor, since you seem keen on it,” her tongue surrendered one language for another, and the words stiffened Kuroro’s blood. Lifting her profile from the doors, Oito’s empty gaze stared at the line between them. “But neither of us wants to put that boy in the ground.”

Kuroro’s mouth sealed.

In the ground. 

_In black soil._

Black by fertility—soon, by fire. 

_The naked forest, damp bank and deafening river. Pedaling feet, young Kurapika cupping a hearth of misshapen stones and weeds, offering it to an empty sky. To the spire of a faceless mother, hair wet with moonlight._

_A burial for angry prophets._

_Hands cradling candle-wick, lighter flame, fingertips dusted in soot, back pressed against temple walls. Forest smoke turned sandstorm, curling into red brick and landfill. A coffin made of cola-cans and spit-soaked pages Paradise Lost—licked, slapped to the sides. His Spider’s body is silent, quiet—saw Kuroro kneel at the feet of a stone goddess, her veil spray-painted neon and her eyes blinded by the same treatment._

_He didn’t kneel in prayer._

_Never in prayer._

_In indignation._

_Fury._

Better to reign in hell, _he'd stepped to up her pedestal, machete dragging behind him. She'd towered over the coffin,_ than to serve in heaven. 

_He swung._

Amen. 

_Like coal in palm, the statue crumbled. More fragile than bone, spoken for, man-made; Kuroro made a sacrifice of the goddess and a pyre of her temple and swore never again._

_Never again._

Oito’s voice shook the memory— _belled down pews, up behind the City’s burning church and into the Lukso river, water rushing wine-dark with bodies—_ he stared at her, unseeing. “I will not pretend to know what motivates you. I don’t need to.”

“You don’t know me,” Kuroro heard himself say, vacant-sounding in Whale’s hall. 

The Black Whale. Kakin’s ship. 

_What is happening to me?_

“You don’t know me either,” she matched, head turning. Her profile lined up with her shoulder, and she stared sideways at nothing. “And you don’t need to.”

“You pay him to risk his life. You hired him to die.”

He was angry at Kurapika. 

“I did.”

Very angry.

“I have no admiration and no pity for you.”

_You’re not allowed to die before I do._

“And you shouldn’t,” Oito’s look of loathing was a bite at her own throat, not his. She wiped a palm down the side of her face and kept it there, hiding one of two closed eyes. “I’m not asking you to protect him—” 

Kuroro was jaded with grief, numbed by burnout 

“—I’m praying you do what I can’t _afford_ to.”

_ Love him.  _

Without another word lost, the doors thundered closed behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **ring of saturn** : _represents boundaries, responsibilities, discipline, maturity and seriousness. may cause the subject to feel pessimistic or have their reality somehow distorted; moody, complicated and unrealistic_
> 
> i spy with my little eye a man in absolute crisis lol
> 
> real talk: i wanted to apologize for not getting to respond to a lot of last chapter's comments! some personal stuff got in the way for a hot sec, but i'll definitely be going back to those this week, you all can bet your butts. as always though, pretty please let me know what you guys thought!! it's what keeps me going haa 
> 
> massive thanks to the lovely [@kinsdura](https://kinsdura.tumblr.com/) for proofreading this thing, they're royalty for it ❤️
> 
> * **edit:** oito's love is purely maternal! it was more meant in the "i can't care about him under these circumstances, because i can't forfeit him as a bodyguard even for his own safety" way.


	8. act viii. mount of mercury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so my good pal [@sailershanty](https://twitter.com/SailerShanty?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor), ever-talented & fabulously edgy, made [coverart](https://twitter.com/SailerShanty/status/1222803944696619010) for chlorine & i’m losing my mind over it. by losing my mind i mean i sold my soul to them & regret exactly none of it lmao 
> 
> [@kinsdura](https://kinsdura.tumblr.com/) needs no intro, but they saved my life again by being my beta on a mission ❤️ 
> 
> **this chapter gets heavy**. is outrageously long too (18k+). steel your spines, enjoy & let's get this horrorshow to curtain. 
> 
> clown town quarantine party zone [@itsillumi](https://itsillumi.tumblr.com/)

* * *

Talking to Oito was coming home.

Coming home to iron sandstorms and slums, swallowing stones baked into bread—because that was what _coming home_ to their home was. Kuroro didn’t move from his spot, body anchored by mahogany, braced by words still hanging in the incense. Void eyes, overcast and carved out with realization, cut lines into wood; he’d left his throat bare and Oito had taken a bite out of him. She smelt his vulnerability stirred into the air, clawed into that opening with about as much grace as her mercy would allow. Not a predator, no, but even Kuroro could admire the teeth of a scavenger.

Shoulders pulled down, closer to the ocean floor than any god, his body sung relent.

He didn’t want to bury Kurapika. 

Kuroro wanted lots of things—time to slow and reverse, his Spider the way it had been, a world where Illumi wasn’t his ferryman to damnation and Tserriednich didn’t test his teeth against Kuroro’s mask, unabated. But Kurapika’s breath still weighed down his lips the same way his voice weighed down his mind, and the thought of either made Kuroro’s red-right hand _ache._ A disconnect between his nature to dismiss or destroy, and something newfound. Something unexplored.

For all the grizzly pain branching up his lungs, Kuroro didn’t want Kurapika dead.

Not anymore, if ever.

He’d made a sad-man out of Kuroro, a shell that weakened at the sight of him, still black-lit but now without grace. With a swallow he fell back from the door, took one step too many until his back met the wall and his head tilted to one of several corridor chandeliers. Love was an ocean storm _,_ a winter field. It had nothing to do with the soft folds of a flower.

What _hanahaki_ should’ve been was drowning.

Salt-water waste, oil-spill intravenous.

_You’re killing me._

For once, the thought had little to do with the physical.

“It’s rude to eavesdrop,” Kuroro droned. “Ruder not to say hello.”

Walls with ears, fortified with eyes. The presence that’d been following him spiked in a spill of sakura liqueur, before plateauing. Familiar, but more fragrant than it had been before—and Kuroro had Hisoka’s leftover gore to credit for that; the image of _Suite 44_ was woodblocked into his mind, inked to perfect fucking permanence. It took a moment for Kalluto to dip out from behind a corner, his apathy misleading. Caution was written into his form, coiling it with apology.

Kuroro tilted his head along the wall, turning it to face him. Seeing a Zoldyck come alive with emotion was strange, and stranger to have one at his beck and call. Kuroro smiled something weak. “There you are, little Zoldyck.”

Kalluto didn’t return the expression, didn’t so much as acknowledge it past wide eyes and a face half-hidden behind his fan. His hair was longer, an a-line that teased the highs of his shoulders at the back and threatened to pour past his collar in the front. _It couldn’t have been that long_ , Kuroro’s head fell, soon followed by his smile. The Whale swallowed any sense of time he had, condensed what felt like years into seconds and stretched minutes into months. It made him too aware of how bone-deep his exhaustion had become.

Kalluto’s stare held vigilant.

He was stiff, straightened with the sobriety of being caught in the wrong. Like a child. Kuroro’s eyes slanted; _because you are a child._ Like Kortopi, when they’d snuck a tangerine slice from Machi’s hand. When their body had closed off and braced for rejection, almost practiced. But unlike the smile he’d dealt Kortopi, Kuroro saw the repertoire of Zoldyck discipline nailed into Kalluto’s fragile, bird-boned collar. _You’re worried._

_Worried about consequence._

In vapid awe, Kuroro wondered how far Silva would go for perfection.

Kalluto wore the look poorly. Kuroro’s mind still rung with his Spider’s voices, calling the boy _severe,_ calling him _dangerous,_ as though his heritage had ever meant anything but those two words in tandem. But Kuroro wasn’t used to seeing emotion on those honed features. Vulture-like and unsuited to tote human instinct. They were meant to be coral: pretty, drowned where none could see, and entirely, unequivocally unfeeling.

This was off, in just the right amounts, to speak in volumes.

 _He’s following me for a reason,_ something unsavory and solicited by Maison Zoldyck’s on-board authority. _Gods,_ Kuroro was starting to resent Illumi in equal measure to Hisoka. He was burning through the remnants of Kuroro’s patience, the boulder he’d been pushing uphill for so long that it was about to roll down and flatten everything in its path. Hisoka made him want to raze the ship with everyone in it; Illumi made him want to raze it with himself included.

_I pity a boy born Zoldyck._

A name that ruined its sons and everyone else with them.

When Kalluto’s stare didn’t falter and he didn’t speak, Kuroro frowned. “Is something the matter?”

Kalluto’s mouth hung for a moment too long to be intentional, and his expression changed from caution to strident disbelief.

“Speak.” 

Kalluto didn’t. The fan snapped closed, peak drawing a circle over his nose and mouth, something slow and damning; the tail-end of the movement flicked to Kuroro in a silent point.

Incredulous.

Kuroro touched fingers to his lips.

And when they came back, they did so black. Viscid blood strung between them, dense with oil and resin. Kuroro turned his wrist over, watched detached as it made a cornice of red on knuckles. _I—don’t—_ he pressed his other hand against both nose and mouth, not sure where the blood was dripping from more. It was the perfect manifestation of dependency, of how badly he’d immolated himself. Kuroro’s eyes fluttered, struck; for the first time, his mental and physical states had reached harmony: delusion that made wiser men tremble.

Maybe it was Kalluto’s presence that had him remembering Illumi’s warning— _‘You’re going to die a painful death, Lucifer’—_ but it was the dampness between his fingers that had Kuroro living in those words.

_And it will be no one’s fault but yours._

Oito had triggered something.

Her words dovetailed into the agony Kurapika was already dealing him. Kuroro swallowed, trying to rinse his mouth with spit. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact he had no handle on his mental faculties, or that his body’s perpetual state of pain registered as _nothingness._ True desensitization to the metallic taste of blood. Circumstance, by virtue of this fucking boat, had reaped Kuroro of control in all its variants. Because he hadn’t felt the drip, hadn’t noticed the dampness warm his vest.

Hadn’t seen it coming.

Kuroro’s mind was static. He smeared his palm off, let blood streak his cheek before he dropped it and closed his eyes. _So much for not letting a Zoldyck smell my blood in the water._ They were the only people who ever did. Kalluto’s aura hovered closer, and Kuroro chose to reopen his eyes out of respect more than the desire to do so. Kalluto made an offering of a handkerchief, soft cotton stitched with Padokean flora. 

Appreciative, Kuroro gave him a weary smile. “That’s kind of you.”

“A necessary courtesy,” Kalluto mumbled, watching him wipe off the grime. “I won’t ask.”

“I wouldn’t have answered, had you,” Kuroro intoned, indifference returning. He looked down at Kalluto with his head still tipped against the wall, eyes half-mast with burnout. “You were following me.”

“I—” Kalluto’s mouth hung for a brief moment before clicking closed. “Yes.”

“For a while now.”

“I was.”

“How honest,” Kuroro hummed, held the handkerchief to his mouth and spoke through it. “Your older brother could learn from you.”

Shock and mild offense flashed across Kalluto’s face.

It was a lie. Kuroro was versed enough to know who, between the brothers, was more prone to dishonesty and it wasn’t Illumi. No, Illumi couldn’t exercise the uncalculated will to tell a lie. He couldn’t so much as _pray_ without his body and soul’s absolute dedication to the god he spoke to. As a dishonest free-man himself, Kuroro knew what to look for.

And Kalluto had his father’s stare.

With a tame guard, Kuroro waited for the boy to gather his bearings. _And it’s because of that freedom that Illumi sends you on these little excursions, isn’t it?_ Because while Illumi had the capacity to withhold truths and frame them, he was also smart enough to know Kuroro’s capacity to extort. _You would never run the risk of playing that game with me._

 _“Aniki_ is honest,” Kalluto pursed his lips, looked up at Kuroro through the cut of his fringe. “Just not very forthcoming.”

“Indeed,” Kuroro sniffed to the side, tried to keep blood from sliding out. He cocked his head higher, expression a landscape of ice and capped disinterest. His gaze flew down to Kalluto, darker than ink, “and are you forthcoming, little Kalluto?”

There was no hesitation.

“I am,” he breathed in a rush to get the words out, eager to please. Attention-starved. “I am, _danchou._ ”

_Danchou._

It splintered the air. Kalluto’s voice shaped around it wonderfully, too much so for a voice Kuroro didn’t trust yet. Not Machi’s, not Shizuku’s, but a Zoldyck’s tight rendition of his title. Gaze rounding and face clearing, Kuroro downed the reminder he was served; even if the sky split and fell straight from Kurapika’s eyes, even if the sun rose from the fucking West, Kuroro would always—without fail, without exception—be the Spiderhead. Godless prophet of the _Gene’i Ryodan,_ merciless enough to be a pariah in a city of outcasts. 

His stare must have unsettled Kalluto, because it took only a moment for the boy to drop his gaze to the carpeted flooring.

“Yes,” Kuroro agreed, monotonous, eyes rich with uncharted dispassion. “ _Danchou._ ”

Kalluto didn’t look up.

“I will ask once,” he started, when the boy didn’t. Kuroro placed a hand on his head, brushed the fringe back with his bloodied thumb. “And feel free to answer to whatever degree of honesty you so choose.”

Kalluto nodded, once.

“Why were you following me?”

“Because I had to,” Kalluto shot up to him unblinking. It sounded honest enough, even if the information was measured. Kuroro actively softened his gaze, huffing into the handkerchief, amused. He dropped it from his face when the fabric felt heavy and waterlogged.

“You had to,” Kuroro repeated, licking the sharp underside of his teeth. “By Illumi’s diktat, I’m sure.”

Kalluto looked off to the side, and it was all the answer he needed. Kuroro didn’t push for more, sniffing and crossing his arms.

“Little Kalluto,” _you made one miscalculation, Illumi,_ Kuroro teased him with a smile. “Are you hungry?”

_Leaving skilled game where I could poach it._

//

For a Zoldyck, Kalluto’s company was a streak of vibrance in an otherwise black-painted atmosphere. Fluid, deceitful, a multitude of different things not all good— _and yet,_ Kuroro eyed him from the corner of his eye. Kalluto wasn’t jaded, wasn’t a voodoo doll either. He walked with measured steps and his kimono never set its sun into the ground, face forward and unreadable. He hadn’t given Kuroro a straight answer, only looked at him with calculating, wide eyes, before a shoulder rose in shrug.

A yes, by measure of Kalluto’s silence.

Kuroro did what he’d always done with Kortopi: he smiled. Nodded, and tapped into the residue of unused charm he’d banked since boarding. Kalluto was far from the weakest link, but he was by far the only Zoldyck lacking in loyalty. He didn’t square his shoulders like Illumi did on introduction, and he certainly didn’t curl his lip at Kuroro the way Zeno had—that old-man, even in acknowledging Kuroro, managed to turn a nose up at him in the same breath.

_Like father like son._

_Like grandson._

Kuroro shot a look around. They hadn’t gone far, dropping back to the Third upon Kalluto’s suggestion and by his strength’s doing. With a slow turn of the head, Kuroro looked away from the terrace and the spot Kurapika had been standing months ago. The place was the perfect middle ground between the grandeur of the upper decks and the desolation of the lower few, a modest mix of modernity and practicality, with small boutiques littering the outer-edges of the mess.

Kuroro pinched his collar, held the inside against his mouth to wipe off any smear that might’ve stayed. The smile summoned itself, weak but genuine, when he caught sight of a distracted vendor. A middle-aged woman with nervous eyes and nervous hands. _Ah,_ Kuroro breathed in, as deep as his lung would take before it hurt into a cough. It smelt like the inside of an aging cologne bottle, all rust and sweltering fragrance.

“Say, Kalluto,” he spoke through it, eyes smiling. He caught the boy’s hum, the subtle tick of his profile upward. “Would you like to play a game?”

Kalluto frowned. “What game, _danchou?_ ”

Dropping his collar, Kuroro gave him the full weight of his smile. Starved for something dangerous, ready to swallow things whole. “One rigged from the start.”

There was hesitance Kuroro didn’t wait for.

A gust of air left him, more excited and exhausted than ever since boarding the Whale. He’d observed everything and admired none of it, been struck with omen after omen, every die pre-cast in his mind. This— _this,_ the way his feet rose off the ground, silent, and his body slipped past men with loose hips and a glass-sharp, angled torso—was the only _home_ he wouldn’t allow Oito to take from him. Home that hit his gut, curled like maple whiskey and bruised strawberries in winter. Nicking apples off kiosks and getting chased with a rod and a single-bulleted automatic and the serotonin of a swear word.

Home where the thrill was and Kurapika wasn’t.

The fault-lines between sanity and adrenaline kissed, and Kuroro’s grace leapt into instinct when he pressed a back against the wall and forgot to blink. He burned, eyes flying from the spartan angles of the pop-up, to the one patron who leaned against it, to the vendor whose running fingers lit a cigarette. Chin in palm, smoke hanging from her knuckles, eyes blackened with emotion and flattened with dissociation and boredom.

No one would die this time.

No one would die because Kuroro was a _god_ at what he did.

Because Kuroro was a thief first, and everything second. Because Kuroro didn’t need some histrionic raison d’être for doing what he did best. If it was a return to the simplest pleasures that would stay his sanity, then he was willing to do the world filthy, rob it of the cheap sour candies that made enamel ache and the chewing tobacco that blackened it instead. The back-alley terror runs, when Kuroro was young, _younger_ , when he’d still believed money wasn’t worth stealing because money didn’t taste very good on an empty stomach, when he—

Kurapika’s face, saturnine with judgment, found his thoughts.

And stability collapsed _._

Momentum found his body, and he slipped past the leaving patron, drank the perfume that clung to his lapel, and tried to stomach it without— _without—_

Kuroro chest spasmed. With dizzying unease, he lost the steps he’d earned, watching the woman fade in and out, eyes straining with focus. It took a moment, half maybe, for him to dig desperate heels into the ground, take off in her direction. A reckless flurry that had him chewing on bloodied petals. _Re-swallowing,_ when they dissolved on his tongue in a pat of silk and iron _._

_I am in control._

Breathe. Kuroro bit back the urge to heave, upper lip dampening with a nosebleed. His body wanted to break itself in half, bend into the perfect position to puke his heart out onto the mess’ floor. A dying, pitter-pattering hummingbird heart. _Breathe._ Nerve-ends short-circuited, fired, and suddenly that lung that had been stuffed to the brim—

_Rip._

A gentle sound, echoing in every hollow that could be felt.

The blood came in biblical flood, caged by his teeth. Before the woman’s turning gaze could find him, Kuroro flew sideways out of sight. Out the mess. Down the hall, the corners of his eyes licked in black and darkening. His hand flattened itself across his mouth, though it did nothing to keep the blood from carving out the lines of his throat, dipping lower into the cradle of his collar. It slicked leather against skin, made the nausea thicken into a knot in his throat.

Pain, like burning.

Pain, like _inferno_.

The glowing of a washroom sign registered as a final grace, and Kuroro made for it with stumbling feet, a jealous fury between vertigo and blackout. Seconds flew past, none with cohesion. His body slammed into a stall door and his knees struck tile, swinging into a glide and a near-shatter when they met the toilet stem. What came out of him was the sound of digging his own grave: chokes folded into heaves into stuttering shoulders, his back turned out so far in arch that every bone rose under leather. The spine of someone who’d been on the brink of death one too many times, whose meals consisted of breathlessness and thoughts of Kurapik—

Kuroro couldn’t finish the thought.

The water in the bowl thickened, a molasses that stunk of tree-bark and sacrifice. Resin sealed his throat, gelling it; no swallow went down, and no amount of force kept the coughing from coming up. Hips rising off the ground, Kuroro’s everything rocked, strain forcing water from his eyes, mixing it in with the delta of gore slicking his lips, stringing down into porcelain.

It took too long to stop.

But it stopped eventually, when he thought it never would. Kuroro couldn’t feel the better half of his chest and shoulder, buzzing and numb. What he could feel in the rest of his body was the pain of hitting his temple one too many times against the toilet seat, the pain that gave blessings to a budding migraine. His knees were stitched with it, ache weaving in and out of the hollows to settle behind the cap; Kuroro slumped back, form sagging against the door, legs splayed open on either side of the toilet.

The stall, once clean enough, was covered in his love.

Judgment day.

Kuroro swallowed what he could, closed his eyes and tried to ignore how wet his lashes were. He couldn’t move his shoulder or raise his arm. The lung’s trauma felled movement all the way up to his trap and seeped down his obliques. _I—gods, Kurapika, you’ve damned us both._ The pins and needles would fade, and Kuroro was experienced enough to know what type of pain would replace them: paralyzing. He was no stranger to broken bones, a blown out back and a black eye, the type of cuts that tore from shoulder to hip. Kuroro was no stranger to pain _._

External injuries were no heavy burden.

_Not breathing—_

His phone chimed.

It vibrated against his thigh in a stiff, stupid reminder that Kurapika existed separate from his thoughts. Wincing, Kuroro rested his weight on the palm he could feel, elevated himself from slouch to seat. There was only one new message in his inbox—an Association memo, watermarked through and oddly screen-shotted. _Incident 6B1; Tier V._ Kuroro waited to breathe only after he checked the attachments it came with.

A photo of a body, blanket-covered.

Another, of Kuroro himself in profile, staring down the dead bartender.

> _> Learn to spell self-restraint. Preferably not in blood. _

Kuroro’s grip made a hair-fine crack across the screen. The first, a paramedic must have taken, too clinical and close. The second—

The second Kuroro couldn’t stop looking at.

Blood-curdling. Taken at an angle from the crowd, distant and hidden, like they were afraid. Far enough to measure safety in feet, but nowhere near far enough to veil the inhumanity of his expression. The gruesome vacancy, no depth and no mercy and no lick of functioning humanity. There were gradients to his own face he didn’t recognize were his, the needle-edge of his nose pharaonic and cruel, chin tilted at the angle of perfect holiness.

_‘—now that’s a face worthy of a name like yours.’_

Kuroro was not one to look into mirrors. 

And this was a reminder that perhaps he should.

He dropped his hand, phone face down, onto the ground and looked back up into the white light of the overheads. Resting his head, he pretended for a moment he could breathe. And for the other three, until Kalluto’s knock came for him, that he knew what he was doing.

Red on his collar.

//

Voice raw, wet, and mostly missing, Kuroro asked Kalluto to wait outside the washroom. He’d never been more thankful for Zoldyck discipline when he was met with soundless obedience. Kalluto’s steps were weightless, Kuroro didn’t hear them come or go, but he’d already waited long enough. Hand to the ground, Kuroro lifted himself and found support along the stall door; his body throbbed, from tip to tailbone, heel to hip.

Dizziness met him halfway to the sink, had Kuroro’s form tilt and limp, find its way to the counter by virtue of proximity rather than coordination. He sagged against the edge and pressed a hand to his pectoral, kept it there like some kind of comfort. The heat in his skin didn’t allow it though, and neither did the ache in his ribs. _And somehow,_ Kuroro met his own eyes in the mirror, failed to recognize the lack of everything that made him himself. _I still have an appetite for you._

_Nothing but you._

His body was bathed in debris, the white straps of his vest turned red, the angle of his jaw singing with pain and what would soon become a bruise. The loose threads of his sanity unravelled at the sight; this was wrong. This was all wrong. There was none of the grandeur he’d confronted Hisoka with in the past, no neon starlight and no stage and no crowd, no one to witness their demise narrated by a Heaven’s Arena commenter pitching praise and excitement.

Hand to lung, the _Sun_ tattoo was covered in a layer of sheer blood. Kuroro found it more comforting to meet eyes with what he once was than what he was now. That stamped gaze, painted fresco-violet with desolation, with exhaustion, was a beast of a different sort. Unkind, persistent. There were few things worse than death, and when Kuroro reached for the faucet and watched his hand’s grip fail once, twice, he decided this was one of them.

He did nothing but rinse his mouth.

No straightening leather, no wiping it down—not with blood already reintroducing itself to the back of his throat. There was no use, not if Kuroro knew it was bound to happen again. And again, and again, until the second lung was lost and torn and the only thing Kuroro’s legacy would yield him was— _a bedtime story._

He held an open palm under water until it seared it red with burn instead of blood.

_A horror story._

_You and I, what a love sto—_

Kuroro’s fist closed, unable to stand the color anymore. _You._ Kurapika’s eyes flashed in his mind, and the glutton for punishment in him nearly doubled over at the reconstruction of his voice, at the heartsick, dead-voiced ‘ _Emperor Time’_ that was more elegy than eulogy _._ Memory was slow, and shock cast across his face with washroom light. Kuroro drew his hand away, watched it as though it was attached to someone else. It was the rule of violence, cruelty for cruelty, left without intervention.

He slid the faucet closed, and with a delayed sense of self, made his way out to Kalluto. 

Kalluto met him with wide-eyes, calculating, and a half-hidden face. Kuroro didn’t bother sculpting an excuse, and wasted no time on one. His chest hitched and fell awkwardly with every breath, a two-step inhale and sudden exhale; there was no hiding when it was body over mind. Kalluto gave him a quick once over. Far from kind, but still further from malicious.

Detached.

Too like Illumi and not enough like Kalluto.

“L—let’s—” Kuroro’s voice failed with a grate and half-cough. Stiff, he gestured off to the side with his head in the direction they’d come from, back to the mess and the terrace. If there was anything he needed in that moment, it was ocean air. Kalluto returned it with a nod, and asked no questions when Kuroro gripped his own arm at the elbow. Feeling began returning in waves of dull ache, nerves burning in his tricep. _At least I’ll be able to move it soon._

By virtue of the hour, the terrace was locked. Kuroro was too incapacitated to care, watching level as Kalluto sliced into the lock with a paper fold. Just like he’d taken a similar edge to the guards that had tried stopping them on their way down. _Ah, so reliant,_ Kuroro resented himself a little more. _Who thought it’d come to this._ Under reverence, or maybe pity Kuroro couldn’t be too sure anymore, Kalluto gave him room to step out first. Any identifiable thought in that direction didn’t last when the wind opened his gelled lung, the one that remained.

Kalluto didn’t comment when Kuroro leaned back against the wall facing the ocean, slid until he came to a graceless, wide-legged seat. A glorified deadman, Kuroro wasn’t sure how much longer he could afford to stand for, and for the life of him, he would sooner look like an intentional mess than a victim of circumstance. _Shizuku_ —his throat closed—had seen it, and that was one too many people. Kuroro knew Kalluto’s tongue was loose enough to leak information about his brother.

But Kalluto was a double-edged sword, and just like he unraveled the essence of his family to Kuroro, he could also be as loose tongued with his brother.

_Everything he sees—_

_Everything I do._

Kalluto may not know what was happening, but Illumi _did._ All the boy had to do was spill what he’d witnessed, pry open that panopticon mind, and Kuroro would find himself powdered in Illumi’s fist at the slightest hint of vulnerability. _Slightest,_ he breathed a laugh, ignoring the desolate way it sounded. _Nothing about this is slight._ Before he could wallow in more self-pity, he looked back up at Kalluto.

The boy hovered, not sure where to put himself. He stood awkwardly over Kuroro, watching for a sign or an order. Kuroro huffed and gave it to him in the form of a gentle smile and a nod to his side. There was only the mildest change in his expression, though even through his exhaustion, Kuroro saw the preen. The lifting of the shoulders and slight widening of the eyes.

Kalluto dropped with far more grace to his side, plopping cross-legged with a straight back, eyes straight ahead. He looked far more at ease from this angle, excited. Melancholia clogged Kuroro’s breathing—or maybe it was the flowers. _Kortopi._ Kalluto was different, nothing like the innocent and reserved Kortopi. The Kortopi Kuroro had sent to an early grave, let die younger than young. Still, there was something there; a genuine need to impress, a genuine attachment to his hip.

And Kuroro understood exactly none of it.

He sighed, let the boy have his moment. Whatever the indoctrination, whatever the initiation, one thing was made painfully clear: Zoldycks operated in a hierarchy—and Kalluto was far from a priority. It was easy to see; everything from the way he carried himself to the way he dressed. Illumi had been the firstborn, Silva’s one and true mausoleum of parenthood, the child saturated with authentic, violently broken, Zoldyck mentality. Zoldyck _brutality._ _Silva raised Illumi—_ Kuroro’s eyes studied the boy’s profile, tore it apart in search of something to prove him wrong— _but he didn’t raise you._

Because Kalluto was nothing like him.

Kalluto was cautious, confident but rational in that confidence. No blasé narcissism, and more importantly, no innate sense of responsibility. Kalluto didn’t think his actions mattered to the greater good of the family— _or you wouldn’t be here, with me_. To inherit Silva’s eyes may have been an honor, but it was not enough to make a Zoldyck. Kuroro frowned before he realized he was frowning.

_Are you a Zoldyck, Kalluto?_

“I—” Kuroro’s voice was a chafed version of his baritone. “I promised you a meal. I couldn’t provide.”

“It’s okay,” Kalluto blinked, from the ocean back to him. The day had died somewhere between his lapse in sanity at the bar and his colossal defeat by Oito, leaving the sky run with ink. The only sound between the both of them was the break of tides against the Whale. There was nothing on the horizon, no stars, no moon. The sky was unloved by light, and the only little comfort they had was a blinking white hailer beacon.

Kalluto’s eyes were dilated, magenta brought to red. “I don’t eat often.”

Kuroro winced.

_You’re a child._

“Why n—” Kuroro’s voice caught, and he gathered himself with a stuttered breath. When he couldn’t muster a voice, he gestured with his good hand for Kalluto to respond.

“Oh,” he tilted his head, bird-like. “Conditioning.”

Kuroro’s mouth hung in hesitation. It wasn’t out of character, he supposed, but it was hardly something Kuroro could understand himself. Appetite lost to stress was reasonable, albeit not ideal. Suppression in the name of discipline was a disgusting privilege. Kuroro remembered the children Kalluto’s age, back in the City, who’d taught themselves to swallow sand without crying simply to feel the weight of something, anything at all, in their guts—even if it was dust and limestone. Hunger was a sacred thing, worth honoring. Kuroro gave him a once over, cagey. “You’re very young.”

“Yes,” Kalluto nodded, vacant in his own way. “The perfect age for physical mastery is between seven and fourteen, when the body can break and build stronger, tolerances accounted for.”

Kuroro didn’t blink.

His mercy married the sea, and the disgust budding in Kuroro knew little rival. _What have you done to your son, Silva?_ Kuroro didn’t turn away, expression stilted with glacial rage. Just like the beckon of a hungry gut, there was little more holy than family. Kuroro didn’t know how much of his mind was his and how much belonged to the trauma in his chest, but his heart hitched, furied; _I made my family from nothing._

_And you destroyed yours for less._

“Kalluto,” Kuroro forced his voice to come. Forced it to stay. “Do you love your father?”

Eyes flashed, an entire parliament of emotions filtering one after the other. Kalluto settled on shock, and maybe it was Kuroro’s audacity that did the trick. “I—of course. I love my father very much.”

“Because he’s a kind man?”

“Because he is a strong man.”

_Ah._

That was all Kuroro needed to hear to tear temptation off the tree. If Pandora’s chaos couldn’t be forced open, Kuroro would smash it straight into concrete until every pearl and every stroke of paint on clay turned the ground mosaic. Kuroro wanted to know everything. Kuroro would derail _everything._ “And you believe men deserve love because they are strong?”

“You have it because you are,” Kalluto cocked his head, like he didn’t understand the question.

“No,” Kuroro didn’t snap, though the tight, sudden edge had Kalluto straightening. “I’m very far from loved _because_ I am strong.”

Kuroro had more enemies than he was aware of, and with his strength, came his abuse of it. There was nothing to love about a man who had power he exercised without restraint, nothing admirable about it. But he and Silva were worlds apart, _because those who love me, do not love me unconditionally._ His Spiders loved him for whatever comfort he’d dealt them, just as Kurapika hated him for the power he exploited, abused.

Kalluto wanted to argue, Kuroro saw it.

He didn’t.

So Kuroro continued, voice straining at the ends. “And Illumi?”

“What about _aniki?”_ This time, Kalluto spoke gentler. There it was again, the caution, the eerie watchfulness that was prepared to flee, hurt someone to do so if necessary. “I love my brother.”

“Why?”

“I love my brother. I love all of my brothers—” Kalluto’s hands tied around the ends of his fan, tightened until the paper folds threatened to dent, “and my _sister._ ”

Resentment _._

Kuroro could _smell_ it. “I wasn’t aware Silva fathered a girl.”

“He has a daughter,” Kalluto’s jaw locked, and Kuroro knew better to take more than he was given on the subject. “Illumi talks about her a lot, doesn’t like her. Not like he likes Killua.”

 _Pays more heart to both of them,_ Kuroro’s mind whirred past its pain, _then he ever has you._ “Does he now?”

Kalluto’s nod was a single, stiff thing.

“And you love him.”

“I love him,” Kalluto stressed, met Kuroro with an inhale that expanded to its full capacity, blew his chest forward and broke his brows down the center. “ _Aniki_ is—he’s—I _love_ Illumi.”

“Make me love him, too,” Kuroro was in no state of mind to be kind. “Make me understand him, Kalluto.”

Kalluto’s face curled around the suggestion with grit teeth.

“Let me make this easy for you,” Kuroro shifted his body weight until he was facing the boy, hovering close with an authority he seldom practiced. Sounding like he’d sanded the inside of his throat, Kuroro made a warning of his whisper. “Your brother is cheaply sold, and twice as cheaply bought. He is unhinged and he is unstable, and given the opportunity, he will hurt you if it so suits him.”

Kalluto’s resentment was caged under hurt. “ _You don’t_ know _him._ ”

“I gave you the chance to help me do just that,” Kuroro fell back. “And you elected not to.”

“Because I don’t want to,” for the first time that night, Kuroro was talking to Kalluto. Someone who didn’t make a performance of maturity he didn’t possess. This was petulant, a fickle aura reflective of a child’s fickle temperament; _no matter how old you think yourself,_ Kuroro watched him drop the fan to the side and bring his knees in by the ankles, _you’ve got far more to go._ “I don’t want to tell you.”

“Because you’re afraid I’m going to use it against him,” closing his eyes, Kuroro banked his head against the terrace wall. “You’re as scared of him as you are for him.”

He didn’t expect a response, and Kuroro didn’t get one. The echo of the ocean sat between them, yawning and demanding. Salt caught on his lip, humid wind easing the strain from his body; feeling had begun to return in gentle bouts of pain, retreating from his arm to concentrate in his shoulder. It pulsed, like he’d been dragged by the ribs— _and maybe I have._

The chain inside him sat idle, at home.

“You know, I never thought I’d live very long,” Kuroro traced the black behind his eyes, no kaleidoscope, “but I certainly didn’t imagine living long enough to see a Zoldyck afraid.”

Kalluto hissed, angry and alive and disobedient and—

“I am a _Spider.”_

_Smoked out._

Kuroro smiled without opening his eyes.

Victory, with a pitch so high, it sounded in silence. He couldn’t hear Kalluto’s breathing anymore, as though he’d spent the last of it on that word. Not that Kuroro could complain; there were fewer things more rewarding than a heist well executed. Chest aching, Kuroro winced and placed a hand over his pectoral. He barely had room to celebrate, simply because there wasn’t much to celebrate. Kalluto may have thrown in his lot with Kuroro—but his attachment to the Zoldycks was stranger than Illumi’s.

Because unlike Illumi, Kalluto didn’t believe himself when he called it love.

 _But who’s to say what love is?_ When he opened his eyes and tried to find Kalluto’s, they were turned up at the sky—an outline so reminiscent of Illumi’s, absolutely gutted. Kalluto didn’t cry, didn’t do much save allowing his brows to tremble and his mouth to waver between purse and pout.

Whatever compelled Kuroro went without interrogation, and with an arm made of burning ache, he brought Kalluto into his chest. Kept him there when the boy stiffened.

And then he lied.

“I will forever take care of my own—” _forever_ “—you are no exception.”

Kuroro didn’t have _forever._

Pain flooded when the boy melted into it, tightened his arms around Kuroro and buried a face up against his chest. Kuroro held his breath, refused to ruin something sacred. _Family is sacred._ Hand trembling, he rested it on Kalluto’s head and aimed his aching wince elsewhere.

“Are—” it was hesitant, muffled. “Are you really going to kill him?”

His admiration for Illumi knew no wisdom.

“Yes.”

Kalluto stayed burrowed. “If I may, can I ask you for something?”

“You may ask,” Kuroro looked down at him. Caught wide eyes and open vulnerability, hair frayed and face round with the innocence he was never allowed to express. “But I will not promise you anything.”

Kalluto nodded—and like the ocean, took Kuroro by storm.

“Don’t be merciful.”

//

It didn’t leave him. The sound of Kalluto’s voice, the conviction coming out of someone so innocent passing; Kuroro’s heart beat into a short-lived frenzy, eclipsed only by the pain of everything around it. Years had gone by since he’d seen a look like that on a Spider. Nobunaga had worn it beautifully, too, lip banked against the cliff of his nose, all caustic words and sharpened canines. He swore, spit flying and rage sheer, that he’d have Kurapika by the hair.

Head, severed.

 _Like Pompey,_ Nobunaga swore on the rings of Saturn that Uvogin wouldn’t die without being buried by his killer, _like the Baptist._ Kuroro rested his hand along the wall, chest closer to the ground than it was to upright. He didn’t smile, although the urge presented itself. _What would you think of me now, Nobu?_ Kuroro could almost picture the snarl, the hiss of an _I told you so_ and a _traitor,_ all in the same breath _._ Kuroro wouldn’t stop him. He didn’t stop Kurapika when he’d done it, and Nobunaga was family. If the day came, he’d let the man tear him apart for his arrogance, stupidity. If anyone deserved it, it was him.

_Not you._

Not Kurapika.

He tore through Kuroro like greek fire, and decided that by the time he was finished, nothing worth wanting would remain. Kuroro took a slow turn, followed the arrows on the wall. _The grandest part of your revenge was never yours at all;_ Kurapika would kill him—that sweet, mother _fucking_ Shangri-La—and he wouldn’t even know it.

Kuroro’s vision was undone when he breathed too deeply, burning nerves mapping the back of his shoulder. He should’ve known that it would get to this point, where he couldn’t go any further without his entire body rioting against him. He should’ve known the minute he’d looked into the derelict bathroom mirror that things were never as they seemed, and when things happened to men like him, they were never benign. Men like him always lost themselves, and they always lost themselves in the grandest ways.

Because bad men died last.

Kuroro’s feet dragged a little heavier, breath deepening with it. His mind was numb, between the empty promises he’d made Kalluto and the very real, very violent promises Oito had dealt him. There was nothing on the Whale shrieking louder than desolation, and for a moment—a lonely, paralyzing moment—Kuroro wanted to swim to shore. Swallow salt and waves and claw his way to the bank, burden someone else with this, one who wasn’t set to die with a Clubs card on their coffin.

Someone who dealt in serotonin needles and morality and the courage of a man immortal. 

When Kuroro came to a stop, the looming white light of the medical wing tore up the geometry of his face.

_The infirmary._

//

Immaculate, was his first thought; somber was his second, liminal in all the worst ways. The lights were turned low, with white lining the heads of the intensive care units, beds hidden from view by curtain. It was warm enough, though, for Kuroro to gather just how many of those were full, and for how long they might remain that way. A place blind to the fear outside. There was a silent chaos to it, and with growing dread, Kuroro realized that he might not find who he was looking for.

His body stuttered to a stop, nearly falling apart at the seams.

If a night nurse, if _anyone at all,_ caught sight of him like this, there was no way they wouldn’t ask questions. Kuroro wasn’t in a state to dip his toes into a fucking altercation at the witching hour. They would push him back into a bed and he’d take a needle to their necks and bolt, without a single shred of subtlety. This time, Kurapika wouldn’t send him a message.

He’d deliver it with the swung, blunt break of a chain.

 _Because this is Paladiknight—_ Kuroro found the foot of an empty bed to grip, choking— _and he’s_ _in a league of his own._ Kurapika would sense the tailings of threat, and he’d pick a fight Kuroro would lose. Not for injury, not for pain, but because Kuroro wouldn’t be able to kill him. Resentment to the gates of god and back, to kingdom come, always. For the lungs he’d shredded and the kiss he’d kept hanging between them.

_I can try to hate you._

_But I can’t kill you._

Kuroro’s knees gave, not enough to drop him to the ground, but enough to force a sag into his spine; the snarl was silent, and Kuroro pretended it came from wrath and nothing else. Grip denting the metal, he lifted himself upright, grit his teeth until they ached and his eyes burned forward in the low-lit neon. The threats he was used to didn’t come, and although the heat in his gut was threatening to burn him alive, that was the only shadow of danger in the room.

Hisoka.

Tserriednich.

Illumi.

Kuroro was so starved, he’d bitten off more than he could chew.

 _“Danchou?_ ”

His head snapped up. Across the room, Machi stood with an IV pole in her hand. She looked rested, patched from toe to tip, her cheek stitched and a chest bandage peaking out past her hospital gown. Her hair had gotten longer as well since boarding, pink dye fading at the roots, and Kuroro didn’t fight the bittersweet nostalgia that formed at the sight of her. She was all wide-eyed apathy, with a softness to her mouth that was glad to see him.

Releasing the bed, his fist made a mold of the metal.

Machi frowned, eyes flicking down to it. When they met his, Kuroro saw intuition pair with observation. For all his lying, even he couldn’t charm his way out of a war-zone. His clothes were still drenched in blood, mouth torn up and burning, with a body bent halfway to hell. She needed no sixth sense to smell the death on his collar.

Barefoot, she walked down the room, rolling the IV with her as she made for him. It was quiet, and without question, when she took him by the hand and led him back to her own unit. At his dragging pace, at his stifled expression. To be led to a sick person’s bed by the sick person felt less like a slap on the wrist and more like a punchline. Kuroro didn’t argue, too exhausted to hide, and too familiar with Machi to bother. She would see through any argument, anyway.

Kuroro slumped into a seat and dropped a heavy head onto her shoulder.

She brought an arm up, resting her hand on his far temple to keep him there.

“I made a monumental miscalculation, Machi,” his voice wasn’t his own. Kuroro brows pinched. “I made a—” _a mistake_ “—miscalculation, and it’s costing me dearly.”

“Have you?” she intoned, both of them staring forward into the curtain between her bed and the next patient. He buried his nose in her hair, in lieu of a nod. She smelt faintly of antiseptic and more strongly of rose-soap: a clean, mundane smell that had little to do with glamour or gore. The _Gene’i Ryodan_ in retrograde. From human to titans and back, from nothing to everything to nothing again. Kuroro’s eyes tightened shut, trembling with the bitterness he didn’t want her to see, even if she could feel.

“I have.”

“This doesn’t look like a mistake, _danchou,_ ” she hummed, her breathing even and quiet and well taken care of. The perfect opposite of his own chest, which caught and caved at odd intervals; _you need to make it out of here, Machi._ Kuroro inhaled, broken every fourth millisecond. _By the goddess, one of us has to._ “This looks like a mess.”

“One and the same,” he replied. “A mess born of mistake.”

“Mistakes are things we don’t want to happen.”

“And who wants to die?”

Machi fell quiet, let him grit his teeth in peace until Kuroro’s shoulders loosened again, as dictated by the pain he housed in them. He didn’t want to die. “No one wants to die, _danchou.”_

Kuroro thought of Kurapika.

He said nothing. She continued, stroking a thumb into his jaw like she intended to press the strain out of it. “And those who do, are never those who have something to die for.”

“I have nothing to die for,” Kuroro scoffed, lifted his head to fall back onto the bed instead, cutting across it the wrong way around. He sunk into the mattress, hot-clay body begging him to give in. “Not anymore.”

Quiet. “I don’t believe you.”

_Ah._

He winced, at the softness of her voice and at its honesty. Machi sighed and dropped to her back right by him. Basking in the stilted silence, they listened to the beeping monitors and allowed the low lights to carve their features into fragments of weariness, draping shadows into where they were most exhausted. Throwing an arm over his face, Kuroro swallowed and elected to change the subject. “You’re looking well. How have the past hours treated you?”

“That’s not the question you want to ask,” Machi responded evenly, “but he’s—he’s been good to me.”

“Paladiknight.”

“Yes.”

Kuroro’s jaw strained. “I’m glad.”

And he was. He was glad the good doctor was doing what had been asked of him, as kind or unkind as Kuroro might have been. Though resentment wasn’t frugal when it came in citric mouthfuls; _this is my job._ He was their survival instinct, even if the _Gene’i Ryodan_ were self-sufficient monoliths. He didn’t voice his concern, and not for lack of wanting Machi to know. There were few things she didn’t. She knew lots, knew better, knew wisdom, intimately.

Machi let him possess the silence for a moment longer, before turning on her side, careful not to let the IV needle catch. “You came looking for him.”

Kuroro dropped his arm and turned his head. Her once tranquil eyes cut across his own, calculating and knowing. He did nothing to stop her, only blinked back with a slow, notable lack of will. “What makes you say that?”

“Am I wrong?”

“No,” Kuroro intoned. “You are not.”

Paladiknight was a strategic choice. He was a doctor, or on the short-side of becoming one. Kuroro wanted to be numbed to the point of _comatose_ if need be, something that’d keep him at arms length from the pain even if it did nothing for his sanity; if anyone could afford him those resources, it was a doctor with a better heart than most. Someone who wouldn’t fuck him over when his mind was already halfway to fade out. All Kuroro needed was to stay upright until the time was right to drop.

“You want his help,” she speculated, taking eyes to his damp collar. The red had settled as brown, between resin and blood, and the warmth feasted on his comfort still. “Because of your miscalculation.”

“Yes.”

“Because you’re dying.”

Kuroro didn’t blink. “Yes.”

Machi’s inhale was deep, profound, and it made Kuroro’s own chest ache with want. Eyes like language, she let them soften with her voice. “There’s no time for that, _danchou.”_

Kuroro sniffed a laugh, tipped his head back and let the stone in his throat point. “No, there really isn’t.”

There was no time for any of this. His thoughts were hued to smoke, and there was nothing pink or romantic about the way soot was gathering, making it hard to think, hard to rationalize, hard to exist without mistakes chasing him well past the stage of surrender. Sensing his bleakness, Machi leaned in closer, and in a rare show of comfort, covered his eyes with her hand.

The bandage was soft against his nose.

“Rest, _danchou.”_

Kuroro couldn’t remember the last time he slept. He held onto her wrist, pressed it as hard as he could. If this were anyone else, the bone would’ve splintered; Machi didn’t wince, held her hand harder against his bridge until Kuroro’s own sagged and dropped to settle over his chest.

//

When a hand hovered over his throat, Kuroro whipped awake in a frenzy his body didn’t allow for. His torso lashed with pain the moment he bent into a seat, bolts of electricity coursed through each rib and halved his breath—an _ambitious_ inhale—down the middle. He flattened a palm across his gut, blown eyes meeting with lid, unimpressed hazel.

“Get up,” Paladiknight leveled him with a stare.

Kuroro’s back was braced against Machi’s chest, a position he didn’t realize he’d gotten into until she grabbed him by the upper arm and steadied him into a cleaner seat. His eyes didn’t cut away from Paladiknight, and if the man had any reservations about Kuroro’s icy, defensive stance he said nothing. “Har—” Kuroro choked on the word, swallowed, started again. “Hardly courtesy to wake a man up with a hand to the neck.”

“Was making sure you weren’t dead,” Paladiknight shot back, wry. “As you can see, the both of us seem disappointed with the outcome.”

“Charming.”

 _“Danchou,”_ Machi cut through the interaction, seemingly bored of the requisite filler. “You wanted to see him.”

 _Ah,_ Kuroro cut a sideways look around. The infirmary was still dampened with low lights and nighttime silence. He must not have been asleep for longer than an hour, maybe two if his softening heartbeat was anything to go by. He met eyes with Machi. Every ounce of vulnerability they’d shown each other was gone; _for your eyes only._

Ice, “You called him.”

“You wanted to see him,” she challenged.

Paladiknight stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed over a dark shirt and sweats, his lab coat untied. He gave Kuroro a severe look. “You kill someone else?”

Kuroro looked away, pointed, eyes fluttering when he rolled them. From his periphery, he caught the look that traveled between the two of them, straight through him. He caught, chewed, and _spat_ it straight out of his mind.

“He’s hurt.”

“Oh?” Paladiknight nodded, parodying impressed. “I wasn’t aware your type bled.”

“Anatomy of a god-killer, doctor,” Kuroro’s gaze slid to him without warmth. “I’m sure you’re familiar.”

_Kurapika._

“If that’s the thought it takes to pacify you,” he scoffed, let the sound shake his shoulders, tilt his head. Kuroro looked like a broken man, but he was in no way incapable of taking a nurse-caller to someone’s head. Kuroro kept silent, molars locking as close as they could without chipping. “Now, I don’t know how the hell you got in—”

Before Kuroro could speak, there was a hand up to stop it.

“Not interested,” _because you’d have to do something about it?_ “More interested in seeing you limp your way back to the puddle of ketchup you crawled out of.”

Kuroro smiled without humor, voice stone-grated. “Astounding to think the Hippocratic Oath is such a mouthful for a man who does nothing but talk.”

“Blow me, bitch.”

 _“Danchou,_ ” Machi hummed, cutting off what was undoubtably a second wave of irritation for all three of them. “I want to go back to bed.”

_Play nice._

Kuroro swallowed, both his annoyance and his pride, before dipping his chin into his collar and looking up through the angle of his eyes. He needed Paladiknight more than Paladiknight needed him—he didn’t need Kuroro, period. If Paladiknight chose to walk past the curtain of Machi’s ICU bed and out those doors, the only thing Kuroro would be left with was a cleaved chest and the pain of swallowing swords.

Softening his expression, Kuroro bit both lips inward. “I have a request.”

Leorio stared, long and intentional, before slipping into a chuckle. “Another, already? Feeling entitled, are we?”

“If you’ll humor me,” this time, when Kuroro smiled, it was relenting and exhausted; there was only so much wit he could spin out of the blood in his mouth. “I prefer to think of it less as entitlement, more as reliance on the kindness of strangers.”

“And if I don’t think of myself as kind?” Paladiknight’s chest rose against his crossed arms, a subtle show of defensiveness Kuroro knew he was unaware of. “I don’t want to do shit for you.”

“Kindness and compassion are two different things, doctor.”

“You deserve neither.”

Machi sagged behind him. There was no secret more poorly kept than their crimes. Kuroro never roamed far enough from sanity to assume Paladiknight might forgive him for any of it. Lukso was only one missing seam in a whole tapestry of atrocity, and with morality like that, there was no way around hostility. _We are two very different men,_ and only one of them chose to dedicate his life to saving others.

Kuroro’s response was a lukewarm smile.

“No attempts at blackmail this time?” Paladiknight stared him down, mouth displeased. “Character growth in less than twenty-four hours. Don’t you think that’s a little hard to believe?”

“Plenty,” Kuroro met him straight. “But I wasn’t on my back for Death this morning, you’ll have to forgive the plot shift.”

Between the unexpected crudeness or the raw claim, Paladiknight’s shoulders sloped in time with his brows. A knot formed at the base of his throat, toting a desperate need to say no.

_I’m dying._

It was speared through teeth. “Follow me.”

Kuroro didn’t scramble behind Paladiknight when he left the bed unit. Machi gave him a gentle shove to his feet. “Go.”

“Why are you doing this?” He turned a look over his shoulder at her, wistful.

“Because,” Machi settled back into the bed, blood chalked across sheets. “There’s no time to be in love, _danchou.”_

//

Paladiknight walked them into an office with a bed and a desk, knocked the lights on with an authority that made the space his. He snatched something off the bed and threw it into his drawer as Kuroro followed. The place was chaotic with paperwork, muddied with a closed scent of medicine and ink. Kuroro could control his limp, but not the way his body slighted over at the stomach. Rest or no rest, pain spirited into every hollow his body offered it.

Hovering by the door, Kuroro stayed until Paladiknight's mouth loosened. He gestured to the bed with his palm. “Have a seat.”

Kuroro inclined his head, taking the offer. Everything that needed to be seen lined his collar, there was no need to pretend he didn't wince when he walked, worse when he pushed up onto the bed. Not planning on being there for very long, Kuroro let his feet sway close to the ground. He was here for a reason, and that was a bottle of painkillers; _if I can’t stop this from happening,_ Kuroro cast an empty look around, crutching on fatigue, _I don’t want to feel it happen._

Paladiknight rounded, resting hips along the front of the desk. “You look like shit.”

“I’m alive.”

“With a bar that low, you might as well be playing limbo with it,” he crossed his arms, frowning. “So you wanna cut to the chase and tell me what your damage is? Physical, of course. Mental is irreparable.”

Kuroro took the jab without comment. “I’m not looking for a check-up, Paladiknight.”

“That’s doctor to you. Leorio, because I’m a _kind_ stranger.”

Kuroro’s mouth was tight with a smile that didn’t want to be there. “You can skip the examination. I came for something specific.”

“Oh?” Leorio raised a brow. “And what could I offer the crime-lord connoisseur that your buddies down in the swamps couldn’t?”

“Tell me, _Leorio_ ,” Kuroro pressed his palms to the bed, forced himself upright, rolled his tongue into the name. “Do you believe in fate?”

“I believe in getting to the point,” it was unamused, curling in all the spots that make it mocking. "So get to it."

“It's a relevant question. Answer it.”

“Hard pass,” Leorio shot back. “I'm a veteran when it comes to bastards who like talking in circles. I know men like you, men better than you at it, too. Let's just say I'm not a fan."

Kuroro was getting nowhere. 

_And you've got the breath to bargain._

Hand trembling, Kuroro reached for the zipper of his vest. The metal caught on dried blood, forced him to press knuckles against his chest to pry it further. One eye sealed shut in a wince, and when the leather came apart, there was a moment of no-noise. 

Then Leorio’s _nen_ went up in a solar flare.

Under a chest covered three quarters in black _henna_ and white— _when had it grown this much, when had I—_ was skin streaked with citrine bruising, patched with internal trauma branching all the way to the cuff he couldn't move. Somewhere between playing father and playing dead, the skin of Kuroro's palms stretched ashier over swollen veins, and the nails not chalked in blood softening into blue. 

Mouth hanging, Kuroro watched as the zipper settled into his lap, flicking the ends of vest open.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking _kidding_ me.”

Kuroro didn’t look up, voice deep with detachment. “I venture you know what this is?”

“I know what it should be,” Leorio was all out of breath. “A medicinal fairytale.”

The Maiden mapped him, swallowed every inch of skin from the stray roots at his naval to the flowers herded by the line of his lungs. The only space which remained was a crowded, frugal patch right under his collar, right over his heart. A stone landed in Kuroro’s gut.

If Leorio sensed his budding distress, he said nothing of it. “Mother of the Messiah, this has to be some kind of joke. I know you have the sense of humor of a bent bobby pin and all but—”

“Do you have a lighter?”

Leorio blanked. “What?”

“Do you have a lighter,” Kuroro lifted his head, slow and eerie with intolerance.

Leorio’s joints stiffened. “Why?”

Kuroro propped a flat tongue out onto his lower lip, mimed lighting a flame at its tip. He didn’t blink, didn’t break eye contact as he kept it hung for a dragging moment. He pulled it in, slow and certain, and lowered his hand.

“Because it’ll catch,” he droned. “And that’s all the proof you’ll need.”

 _Flammable resin._ Kuroro envisioned it licking into his mouth and down his throat. Nothing could be worse than the gasoline he’d developed an appetite for. It was a show made to unnerve and it did its job well; Leorio swallowed and looked off, the gears of his mind winding with false knowledge, revving up information he must have docked away as a joke between colleagues.

“You’re not kidding,” he breathed, trying to convince himself more than the room. He ran a weighted hand through his hair. “By god, you’re not messing around.”

“I tend to enjoy less dramatic punchlines.”

“Bullshit,” Leorio wasn’t looking at him anymore, his focus drawn to the death sentence needled into Kuroro’s chest. His skin, once rich with melanin, broke paler. “I know that tree. That’s his, isn’t it.”

Silence.

Words cost too much to spend on pointless affirmations, and Kuroro’s throat told him he didn’t have many left in him. Leorio scoffed out an exhale, mouth trying to shape itself around a rational response or explanation that wasn’t taking his god’s name in vain. He settled into his discomfort. “I saw it once. He—it was a coin necklace. He used it as a bookmark.”

Kuroro spun a long, unmodulated hum.

“Said it was too heavy to wear.” 

Kuroro smiled thin, wry, and melancholy. “He wasn’t wrong.”

_It’s the heaviest thing I’ve ever carried._

Haunted, Leorio began pacing. There was a tangible tension to his body and a louder siren going off in his head, thoughts filming past his eyes. Kuroro had none of his own to share, though, and even less mind to ask Leorio for his. Finding respite in his own, Kuroro stared at his numb palm. _Your people made pyres of the Maiden,_ he licked sap off his teeth, _I can't imagine you'd have it on a necklace._ No people Kuroro had ever heard of, no matter how archaic or traditional, chose to wear their ghosts like trophies. 

Like boasting. 

_Which means—_

“Did he ever tell you what this tree stood for?” Kuroro sounded idle at best, hollow at worst. There was no desire to argue. He wanted to find meaning, a solution, and a way off this ship without sending everything he’d ever held dear down to the ocean floor in the process.

“I thought you knew,” Leorio swallowed, resentment numbing his shock if only to make a point. “He doesn’t tell me much.”

_Wince._

“Ah,” Kuroro didn’t know what to say to that. “I see.”

“You don’t see shit,” Leorio bit, wiping a hand down his face, keeping it cupped over his mouth. He stared at the far wall, not knowing what to do with the situation. The chuckle that came out was hysteric. “I can’t believe it. You’re actually—you’re _actually_ in love with him, aren’t you?”

Kuroro’s lips parted.

His stupid expression must've registered because Leorio’s schooled his horror. His incredulity ruptured in favor of something solemn, pitying in the same way a father's lecture might've looked. “You’re in love with Kurapika.”

_Don't say that._

“I’m dying because of him.”

Leorio took in a deeper breath, folded the world into the look he gave Kuroro. "It was never going to be different. Not for you.”

“Yeah,” Kuroro tasted blood. “I know.”

"You have to tell him," Leorio's voice was in the process of tightening. "That thing, he deserves to know about it. He needs to, you can't just—”

“I’m _dying,_ doctor,” Kuroro was caustic, cleaving straight through Leorio’s tirade with a scowl fit for medusas. “But I’m a reasonable man: give me one good reason to tell him, and I will.”

Leorio's silence was fierce. 

“I thought so.”

Kuroro’s patience waned for the night.

“I didn’t come for an examination or a moral meet-and-greet,” he cut, pushing himself off the bed and into Leorio’s space. His body was still tilted at all the wrong angles, off to one side more than the other, bend at the hip. Kuroro didn't wince. “I want soft anesthesia. Something I can take to deal with the pain for me.”

“What?” Leorio snapped. “You know what you’re asking me to do, right? I can’t do that!”

“Yes, you can,” Kuroro couldn’t afford for this to fall through. This was the only outlet he could get without risking—“it’s just a bottle.”

“I’d need to register you. I’d need your full name, a valid ID, a _prognosis—_ ”

“You need a reason,” Kuroro interrupted, calm. “And I gave you one.”

The silhouette of Leorio’s form sharpened and his eyes narrowed. It was too late for Kuroro to defend himself against the suspicious upturn of a mouth; he held his ground anyway. “You think going to anyone else will get you poisoned.”

Kuroro rolled the inside of his cheek between teeth, trying to rein in the paranoia. He didn’t lie. “Yes.”

“You think everyone is out to get you,” Leorio shook his head, a sniff of pity and disbelief leaving him. “Convinced the whole world is working against you.”

Kuroro swallowed what he could. “Isn’t it?”

Leorio looked at him—really looked at him, with the somberness someone who knew what it felt like to be alone, sick and silent and full of pride. “I can think of at least one person who isn’t.”

Maybe he meant Machi. Maybe he meant Kurapika.

Kuroro wasn’t sure which of the two hurt more to ignore.

Leorio shoved him back with an elbow across the chest, forcing Kuroro into wider proximity. The movement put a curl in Kuroro’s lip and pinned a wince to his cheek. Leorio shuffled back behind his desk where a library of pharmaceutical drawers sat polished, labeled keen with the alphabet. The font was too small for Kuroro’s dimming focus to catch on.

It took shuffling and writing before Leorio spoke again. It sounded dead. “I can’t give you prescription medication, and I won’t tell you where to find them.”

He turned, slamming an orange pill bottle onto the desk. Met Kuroro’s apathy straight, downed it. The look he cast him had Kuroro shying back, tense and skittish. A teen pickpocket, feeling the heat of a mark gone south. 

“But I can’t do shit if they go missing.”

Sliding his hand away, Leorio didn't look at him twice. Walked past Kuroro and straight out of the office, abandoning the bottle where a dead man could barely reach. 

_For him: don't die yet._

//

The note had said to take two; Kuroro took four and dosed out, downed them with a swallow of lukewarm coffee and a hiss through the teeth. It'd been a few days, characterized by the tossing and turning most common of longer nights. He’d somehow limped his way out of the infirmary, down the tiers and clear back to his own room. Security was lax between the lower decks, and it was neither a surprise nor something Kuroro was about to complain about.

He’d taken his pills, taken a shower, and slept in a bed that hadn’t been made in days. Maybe weeks, if the wrinkles and stale-salt smell were much to go by. Kuroro was too exhausted to care, and what with Machi and Paladiknight’s— _Leorio’s_ —astute observations, all he wanted to do was find a flat surface safe enough to rest on. 

He’d been in too much pain to read what name sat on the pill bottle. Kuroro was versed in many things, Judas’ final prayer, the lush perfection of Caravaggio’s insanity, but Kuroro didn’t have a lick of medicinal knowledge in him that didn’t rely on experience and slang that held no weight in refined spheres. Breaking down the prefixes of languages he hadn’t made a habit of speaking wasn’t something Kuroro was keen on doing. The medication had done what it promised to do: the ache inside Kuroro’s chest was brought to a low simmer, even when his thoughts sung louder.

It took a day to wake up.

It took two to get out of bed and drag himself into the shower, three for Kuroro to paint his nails black to hide the damage, and five to leave his room. This time, though, Kuroro wanted to be found. His vest was scrubbed clean of blood, and he didn’t bother wrapping gauze around his head or his shoulder. He wanted to look like the leader of the _Gene’i Ryodan,_ to reek of _danchou_ ’s aura. Kuroro dressed with his eyes on the mirror—pressing straight the leather, thumbing the blood from his lip, the strain from his brow.

Leorio had bought him some time.

_Time to spend it._

Stepping out of his room, Kuroro took a moment to bask in the quiet of the hall. It was that time of morning, where drunks were having their final swings, and early risers only just falling out of sleep. Kuroro breathed what little of it he could. “Come out, Kalluto.”

There was no hesitance this time.

Silent, as though his feet never once touched the ground, Kalluto slipped out from an electrical closet. His eyes waved with interest, dipping in and out of Kuroro’s newfound composure. “You’re looking rested, _danchou.”_

Kuroro smiled. “I am.”

The invitation to follow was unspoken when Kuroro walked in the opposite direction. Kalluto took it with the same grace he always did, speeding to meet Kuroro’s longer steps. “I’m glad.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

The admission put a dimple in Kuroro’s cheek, fatigued as it was.

There might not have been time to love, but maybe he could make enough time to die. _Come find me, let me sand your bones to dust._ It was a beckon for Hisoka, for Illumi—tatted in ink on his shoulder and his forehead. Kuroro didn’t have the mind to care if his identity became public knowledge.

By the looks of it, he wouldn’t be using it for very long.

“How have you been, Kalluto?” Kuroro mused, looking around. The deck was emptier than he’d anticipated. Sliding his arms crossed, Kuroro’s eyes narrowed; too silent, too dead, far too eerie for the Fifth—the Whale’s de facto temple of noise and violence. The haze of medication eased his adrenaline, and whether or not that was a good thing, Kuroro would have to wait to find out. Mental clarity came with the calm—but he was cut off from the instinctive speeds that kept him safe.

_Alive._

“I—” Kalluto’s mouth clicked shut, a simple question as that catching him off guard. “I am fine.”

“Good.”

“Thank you,” Kalluto’s shoulder brushed his elbow.

“I haven’t served you in any capacity,” Kuroro sent him a look down through the corner of his eye. Kalluto was staring forward, a strange peace on his features. There was none of the anxiety he’d toted before, none of the misplaced hostility. Kuroro wasn’t sure when or where he’d shifted his focus from using the kid to protecting him. Perhaps it was resentment for Illumi, Silva— _or_ _maybe it’s me._ “I’m not quite sure there’s anything to thank.”

“I guess so,” Kalluto braced the open fan over his features, making them look less harsh than Kuroro knew them to be. His quiet was potent, and it took them closer to the edge of morning. _“Danchou,_ why do you hate Illumi?”

Kuroro didn’t blink. “Why do you love him?”

“I love him,” Kalluto didn’t either. “But I don’t forgive him. I don’t know if those can exist together.”

_Ah._

“Is that why you’re asking?”

“Maybe.”

Kuroro’s tongue made thinner the blood between his teeth. _Me, as the voice of reason? How nostalgic._ “A guilty conscience is large enough to house love and resentment. The past is our holiest achievement; we cannot change it,” it hit too close for comfort. “Love is in spite of, not because of.”

“I think he’s ruined,” Kalluto admitted, gaze overcast. “I think he’s got more issues than the selfish sort.”

“You’re selfish, too,” Kuroro looked ahead, walked with slow steps and a slower mind. “As am I.”

“Illumi isn’t.”

“Oh?” Kuroro intoned, in no way surprised by the response, in no way accepting it either. “I beg to differ.”

 _“Danchou,_ I know far less than you, but I know my brother,” it owned attention, forced Kuroro's to acknowledge Kalluto’s words as gospel. “Illumi is—several things. Conceited, cruel, dismissive, but he does it all in the name of another.”

Kuroro scoffed. “Enjoys the feeling of being wanted.”

“The feeling of being needed,” Kalluto corrected. “Loved, even if his love is shied away from.”

Kuroro’s focus tapered. When the medication kept his gaze from sharpening, his mind did instead. _Don’t show mercy._ _Was that a message in a bottle, little Zoldyck?_ “If I may ask, would you answer a question of mine, Kalluto?”

“You may ask,” Kalluto bridged the power distance between them, commanded it. “But I cannot promise you an answer.”

Kuroro obeyed. “Do you think Hisoka ruined your brother?”

“No,” Kalluto hummed, snapped the fan, and let Silva’s eyes rule over Illumi’s features for the moment it took to stop and slash an uncanny stare up at Kuroro. “Hisoka likes _aniki_ because he already was.”

//

Kalluto left without Kuroro asking him to. At the gate of the Second, he’d dealt him a nod, and a soft backpedal before running off. Kuroro wasn’t sure where he was going, why he was leaving, but he suspected it had something to do with the sharpening edges of his own aura. Sobriety was neither present nor absent in its entirety, and the more time lapsed, the more Kuroro’s eyes cut across spaces in search of something dangerous. Someone dangerous.

_I want a fight._

_I want it_ now.

His heartbeat played harder the moment he set a foot on the staircase, careful. He was going to take each tier over, once, twice, thrice, until either of those freaks chose to manifest. _Maybe you, too._ Kuroro’s mind stole to the slope of Kurapika’s throat and the sharper falls of his bitterness, his manipulation; even then, he wanted to see him. Wanted, on some visceral level, to make sure he could still breathe and bleed. _Alive._

Kuroro wouldn’t seek him out.

Basking in a currency of superficial calm, Kuroro killed his way up two decks. Eyes flat, his fountain pen blunted two lives and an hour. Kuroro snuck past where he could, casualties few and far between. If he had no choice, he didn't bargain with gunmen. No, his body was in no shape to indulge men he wasn’t driven enough to fight. From the Second to Kakin happened fastest, blindest, and for once Kuroro was thankful for his disassociation.

Much like the Fifth, and unlike all the others, the Kakin deck was silent during the darker half of morning. Kuroro walked down the halls, careful to burn his presence down to nothing, lifting his steps to silence them. He caged his coughs and choked on them instead, let the corner of his mouth drip soundlessly, wet the heel of his palm with it. He was far from the Queens’ Quarters, further from the King’s.

Not far enough; a lick of _nen_ scraped its way up his nape.

Kuroro stared at the open walkway. Gold letters sat polished and capitalized at its head in a tongue Kuroro couldn't speak, and had no intention of learning. The Kakin alphabet was a stark and unmistakable thing, but Kuroro didn't need to understand it to know what this was. Universal was the rung neon of stacked poker chips and the blaze of a royal circlet.

 _The_ _Queens’ Casino._

The aura was impure, muddled with several at once, some stronger than others. Kuroro’s body locked; they were all strong. All impossibly daunting. _Few._ It was a concentration of two or three disgusting mouthfuls that landed acidic, thick like marrow. Kuroro apathy, borne by caution and medication, teased hostility. _Who—_

What _is in there?_

Reminded of Hisoka’s post-mortem power-up, Kuroro's pulse was a rhythm of fury and curling fists. Gravity pulling him low, he approached the unguarded entrance as a juggernaut; he hid none of his aura, _nen_ spectacular and loud and thundering. There were few people on this ship that had this level of power, and Kuroro knew them all. The transient lull cleared his mind long enough for Kuroro to slide past the entrance arch, into the smoke.

Into a place that, for all intents and purposes, was a ghost town.

The slots sat blinking and untouched, flickering in pinks and blues and screens of promise, the faint swell of sweet smoke clinging to the carpeting, left to color the air. Blue mist hookah, blueberries and peppermint and burning tobacco. Kuroro kept his form jailed with tension, moving only his eyes across the casino walls from the violet wood bar to poker tables left ignored. The place glittered with wealth, the gaudy sort, the sort Kuroro wanted to test his teeth against.

See if it was real enough to soften.

_Like gold._

Sin in the air, he walked past the tables, made a home for his aura in every crevice. Whatever it was, whoever it was, Kuroro wanted them to know that he was less a visitor and more an aggressor. With that as the coda of his reasoning, Kuroro made it the soul of his body language. 

A wordless response, coded _Enigma,_ catered back.

The answering _nen_ metabolized everything in proximity, less valance and all violence, and about as welcoming as a funeral pyre.

Kuroro’s steps picked up, traced the aura down to the bone and cartilage of its essence. The search took him about as long as the response had taken to manifest: no time. Speeding steps turned into a swivel past chairs and over tables and clear under an aquarium the size of which should not exist in a closed space. 

Kuroro was right; he knew this aura.

Messianic, with a face sculpted by draconian virtue, sat Tserriednich.

He was heart attack flanked by two others, a set of five cards in one hand a whiskey glass in the other. Their eyes met, and Kuroro’s patience came loose. He moved, fluid and serpentine, body swinging past the chairs that kept them apart. To what end, Kuroro didn’t know—all he needed in that moment was a victory. Small, a piece of information he could shoot back in a text message without a text or message with it.

_Something to show for all this time I’ve killed doing nothing._

His stop was sudden, boots thudding to a halt just a foot from their poker table. Kuroro didn’t spare a look around, not until a familiar square face filled his periphery; another man—the man he’d recognized but couldn’t name back when Kurapika'd dragged him for dinner in lieu of a less cordial meeting. Serious and reserved, sunken-eyed and royal.

_A prince._

Kuroro hid none of his hostility, made slaughter of the scene. Their aura’s didn’t ripple, didn’t hitch. Tserriednich smiled over the rim of his liquor before swallowing. There was no sign of his _nen_ beast, his only company the blond bodyguard Kuroro remembered seeing. The woman had a full jaw, strong and displeased, a relenting power to her; Kuroro stared. Spanning the length of half her face was a burn mark, a flower that sunk skin into craters. It was discolored at its rim, up by her temple and down near her lips, suggesting age.

Suggesting a lack of healing.

“If it isn’t the boy behind bricks,” Tserriednich tapped the cards on the rim of his glass, bluffing his way through a game Kuroro had yet to start playing. “Welcome.”

“Oh my, you know him, brother dearest?”

His eyes flashed at the saccharine voice, and met with a woman almost as lovely as Oito herself. A lid-eyed, cruel thing with lips a thin tangerine, eyes turned crescents of knowing. Kuroro’s spine crystalized. Face carved ugly with parallel— _intentional_ —scars, she looked every bit as royal as her company, every ounce of their regality bitten into and chewed. Rancid is what this woman was, crownless, her platinum hair needled into by a circlet of thorn and plaited iron.

_Arma Christi._

Kuroro’s breath was captive by _hanahaki_ and caution. _Looks like I’ve stepped myself into a pit of vipers._

“Be quiet, woman,” Tserriednich drawled with a smile, tilted his head in the nameless prince’s direction without breaking eye contact. “You were kind enough to indulge me before, I suppose it’s only courteous to offer you an introduction.”

Kuroro didn’t look at the man, not when Tserriednich’s lashes stayed long and lowered.

“This is my brother,” he continued. “The Ninth Prince.”

“Halkenburg,” Kuroro droned the name, scraping the last letter in perfect pronunciation. A northern name, fit for the son of a northern queen. Kuroro had seen the prince on occasion. Champion archer, graduated _summa_ _cum laude_ from a world-class university. He was nothing to scoff at, even if his features had been hard to place before. Kurapika’s messages came to mind, the titles of memos Kuroro made no plan on reading. Halkenburg, the prince who took a semi-automatic to his own father’s head, to the _king’s_ head. 

Kuroro’s focus remained on Tserriednich. “Son of Duazul.”

 _“Queen_ Duazul,” Halkenburg corrected, both cutting and cordial. Kuroro wasn’t sure how he managed it, but he was even less interested in dwelling on it. “Please spare the appropriate respect.”

“I will do no such thing.” Kuroro’s head turned to Halkenburg with unnatural calm. “I am not Kakin, and she is not my queen.”

Halkenburg’s mouth hovered and his shoulders dropped. Before he could gather himself, Tserriednich hummed a laugh, played the devil’s advocate with a tongue between his teeth. “Come, come, now. It’s only a title—why not be respectful?”

“You’re a man who knows how to use words,” Kuroro smiled, and it reached nowhere else. A curve that might as well have been cut with a shard of broken crystal. “It is in your pride’s interest that I not answer that question.”

_Titles are powerful things._

As were names.

Tserriednich’s head dipped and he breathed a chuckle into his glass, setting it down. “Do have a seat. I’d love your company, if you’re kind enough to lend it.”

Kuroro stood still, got his eyes used to the light and the faint tapping of the woman’s nails. Mild tempered, by her aura, more so by the hookah stem she pressed into her cheek. Tserriednich showed no interest in introducing her, and given her silence, Kuroro ventured she had no intention of doing so either. Her presence spoke of distinct impartiality, a very familiar lack of care Kuroro himself had embodied before the Whale stripped him of it all. His eyes found the crown of thorns again.

The instrument of Passion has his blood simmering as hot as the medication would allow for; his Petrine cross became a bleeding reminder of who wore this warped mythology better.

Of who, truly, belonged to no city.

“And you?” Kuroro asked her, Tserriednich’s noose of an offer still hanging in the background. The woman looked up at him, the white of her hair curling along a cheek, an even more fragile collar; a bottled hurricane, storm in a jar. She’d hadn’t looked away from Kuroro, and when their eyes met, black on black, violence on violence, her smile deepened with amusement. He took it in stride. “I assume you have a name.”

“Indeed I do,” she let the last word linger—a rhetorical habit Kuroro noticed the first time she spoke. “A full one.”

 _I want it,_ Kuroro stayed silent, reminded of where such demands had gotten him in the past.

“Morena,” she supplied, setting the stem down. “Prudo.”

“Kuroro Lucifer.”

“Not Chrollo Lusilfer, then,” Halkenburg observed, slotting his cards to rest by a half-full glass. Looking reasonable, he raised a brow at Kuroro. The expression was pointed, primed with suspicion. _Le Parisein._ “I do have to ask what the point is, your name virtually remains.”

“Right enough to be recognized, wrong enough to exist untracked,” Kuroro explained, holding Morena’s gaze. He blinked first. With a flick of the eyes to Tserriednich, Kuroro hooked the leg of a chair with his boot and pulled it out without grace or temperance.

He dropped into the seat.

“And what a beautiful name,” Morena praised, climbing inside his space with her voice. Soft and smooth, the perfect cadence to draw one in and drown them. “Truly.”

Kuroro's hands found a loose chip, banked it on his thumbnail and flipped; once, twice, until he developed a rhythm that reminded him enough of his Spiders to keep the conversation civil. He thickened his voice and hid the scrape where he could, “Is it?”

“Oh, certainly,” she had no cards in her hand when she placed one over the other, nails unpainted, clean and cut. The crystal hookah stem sat by her wrist, woven with rows of braided acrylic, plated with gold. Kuroro could imagine the thing's weight, its potential running price. Morena made no show of stopping his attention from straying, feeding off it with kind eyes. There was an unspoken parallel between her appearance and his; Lucifer and the Lamb. “Lucifer’s is a… story worth telling.”

Tserriednich hummed, reintroducing himself to the conversation with liquor on his lips. He licked it off and catered his words to Morena with a simper. “Suppose there’s irony to a whore rooting for the most divine of apostates. You poor, sweet, coked-up Magdalene.”

Kuroro was beginning to cotton just what lawsuits Tserriednich had his name on. “An apostate—or a rebel with a cause.”

“Or a fool,” Morena sat back in her seat to get a better look at both of them. Her spine was perfectly hinged at the tailbone, posture straight and poised. “Imperious… but not wrong. A tragic marriage of traits, if you ask me.”

“To my recollection, no one has, sister dearest.”

Morena angled a sweet look at Tserriednich, too sharp to be called a smile. “Brother, your charm is simply infectious.”

Tserriednich chuckled, gentle. “Sweet talk is not a weakness of mine.”

“But perhaps sarcasm is,” her lips flattened when the smile grew. “You don’t seem to recognize it.”

“What would you like to drink?” Halkenburg turned to Kuroro, snipping the interaction short.

Kuroro didn’t take his eyes off the siblings, watching the flare of electricity that flew between them. They were tepid personalities, Kuroro observed, both reliant on silent chaos and distorted ideologies. _She’s not a prince, but she’s sister-dearest._

Ah.

_Wedlock._

Morena was a bastard, Tserriednich was a misogynist.

And both were profoundly unhinged.

“He’ll have a wine, dry sauvignon,” Tserriednich didn’t break eye contact with Morena when he voiced the order. Kuroro caught a lingering barman move to follow through.

Morena was the first to turn away, placing a hand over Kuroro’s to stop the coin flipping. Her choice to shift focus was anything but spineless; it was pointed backhand. “I’m very fond of your work.”

 _A lie,_ poison spun with honey. Kuroro’s charm was nonexistent. “Are you now?”

“You’re part of the _Gene’i Ryodan,”_ she tempered the title. “I have… personal thanks to give you.”

“I look forward to hearing them, then,” Kuroro’s challenge was little less violent than a gunshot. He slipped his hand from under hers, tacked the poker chip in the space between them and made sure her eyes caught the crack that formed, just like they had the tattoo on his upper arm.

Gums peaked past her smile. “I hear my competition has been dealt with elegantly.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Tserriednich tossed Kuroro a look he could only describe as feigning impressed. “The _Cha-R_ were something of an eye-sore. Taking them all out in a single go is a feat worth boasting, and word travels rather fast. Sister’s _Hei-Ly_ are incompetent when it comes to all else but gossip.”

Morena’s expression didn’t waver.

“I wasn’t responsible for that,” Kuroro’s voice tore, scratchier but laced with finality. _So she’s the head of the Hei-Ly, and Tserriednich’s her benefactor._ “I’m afraid that’s not praise I can accept.”

“That’s a shame,” Morena purred.

Kuroro’s monotony sharpened, and he found Tserriednich with eyes soaked in malice. “I’m starting to think you don’t understand who you’re dealing with.”

“I’ve given it some thought, scaled some educated guesses after our last encounter,” he spoke into his glass, let the words thicken with reverb. He stared, not taking a sip so much as wetting his mouth with the idea. Tserriednich held the whiskey by the rim, two gold-ringed fingers and a thumb cradling it over the table. His gaze marathoned Kuroro’s arm, from Spider to Sun. “For a thief, you’re hardly inclined to subtlety.”

“Not when I’m looking to be found, no.”

Halkenburg didn’t weigh in, but Kuroro felt the weight of his stare.

“The nil number,” Tserriednich rested a chin on his free hand. “Tell me—what are you to them? Their trump card, their _deus ex machina,_ their little maharaja or emir, perhaps?”

Kuroro’s response was half-baked, half still in his gut. “They call me _danchou._ ”

_Called._

Halkenburg’s breath caught.

The barman placed a bottle of blanc and a chalice over Kuroro’s shoulder.

“Consider it my honor,” Tserriednich murmured, distracted and wide-eyed. He straightened and pulled each of his fingers in by the thumb, cracking them; a habit, Kuroro knew, for thoughts left undisciplined. _He thinks too much._ After a moment, Tserriednich rediscovered his cordiality, gesturing to the bottle. “Please, help yourself.”

Kuroro flatlined. “I’d rather not.”

“I assure you, it’s not poisoned,” Tserriednich huffed, amused, before reaching to uncork it. He poured a glass out for Kuroro without so much as a hitch in his shoulder. “I wouldn’t be so silly to try, king of the _Gene’i Ryodan._ ”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

Paranoia.

Tserriednich held the wine glass up over his shoulder. The bodyguard—broad-shouldered, strong, tight-waisted, and too reminiscent of Kurapika in her anger—hesitated. The blood in the back of Kuroro’s mouth threatened to spill into a cough, and it took every ounce of his aspect to keep it in his lungs, wherever he could fit it. “Your highness?”

“Show me what you're worth, Theta, and be a good little taste tester,” Tserriednich held Kuroro’s gaze captive. “Our guest needs some reassurance.”

Kuroro bit his lower lip, sucked the blood off its inside before Tserriednich could catch it. A short-lived victory, because Morena’s aura waved in time with Kuroro’s swallow.

Theta was resentment personified. With a tongue pressed against her cheek, she took the glass and clicked teeth on the rim when she drank. Her scar dimpling, Theta gave the glass back, allowed Tserriednich to use that line of motion to set it in front of Kuroro once more. “Drink, _danchou._ I feel as though you might need it.”

Kuroro hooked his fingers around the stem and made no move to obey.

“Forgive me,” Halkenburg cleared his throat. He was by far the most tolerable out of them, but Kuroro’s nerves were dealing with rug burn and the last thing he needed was a man with common sense to show him how much of it he lacked. “You mentioned you wanted to be found. You’re a public enemy, I don’t believe you’d go looking to be caught. Not for a second.”

“No, I don’t imagine you do,” Kuroro turned to Halkenburg, made a point to tip his wine just enough to threaten the table. “But I never said anything about being caught, just found.”

 _I could tell them._ Kuroro had little else to lose. He wanted Hisoka to track him down faster, wanted the tequila-sunrise violence to spill already. He was done waiting, done playing, and if speaking that into the present would help it happen, Kuroro was willing to cut himself clean open and pour his guts out to Kakin’s foulest.

“I’m tracking a man by the name of Hisoka Morrow,” he rolled the wine in his glass, watched it swerve along the curve. “We’re sworn to fight, and he’s made it awfully clear he’s got no religion regarding how that happens.”

“Oh, but that’s not all, is it?” Tserriednich leaned forward, rings clicking when he laced his fingers. “You look like you’ve got hell as an ankle-weight.”

“Ah, brother, to think you’d be so… observant,” Morena drew a line down the bottle, tracing the humidity. “Kuroro, angel, I can’t blame you for turning down the wine. You seem content enough sipping your own blood… you’ve been at it for a while.”

_So she did see._

Kuroro’s brow was quick to rise and slow to fall. “A token of a fistfight.”

Tserriednich shared a look with Halkenburg, something knowing and defining. Kuroro paid them no mind, even when Tserriednich knocked finger after finger against the table, beating the devil’s tattoo by his cards. He all but purred, “Lovers quarrel? Please tell me you broke his nose, that man is far too handsome for how invidious he is.”

“Indeed,” Kuroro murmured. Kurapika—capable, intelligent, outrageously powerful, _mine_ —reduced to Tserriednich’s unimpressed tut. Kuroro wasted every ounce of energy not to let his offense show. “But he won.”

Tserriednich clicked his tongue and laughed. “I don’t remember you being as severe during our last chat. Should’ve guessed he’d be the reason you look like this.”

Kuroro hooked the wine and downed it.

“There we go,” Morena teased, voice wrapped in satin. “Now you’re getting it.”

“What do you want,” Kuroro sniffed, monotonous and irritated, the riot in his chest sounding more and more like carnival than a heartbeat. Clearing his throat did nothing to keep it down. Kuroro let the resin batter its way up in the form of a cough he buried in his elbow. Teeth stained and skin sprayed brown, Kuroro looked up with a grimace and the angles of gradual fury.

“You’re an anomaly,” Tserriednich admitted, casual. Eyes skimmed over him, and Kuroro knew the prince was far too perceptive to miss the discolored blood. “I find you absolutely fascinating. I want to keep you around, for a while at least.”

Kuroro remained static, elbow hovering and drenched. “Too bad we don’t always get what we want.”

“Oh, but I always do.”

“Or?”

“Else,” Tserriednich grinned, met eyes with Kuroro as he downed the last of his whiskey and pushed it carelessly into Morena’s space. “I play about as fair a game as your lover, which is to say, not fair at all.”

_How did you—_

“You’re threatening me.” Kuroro hummed, incredulous on every front.

“I’m making you an offer, actually,” Tserriednich countered, their eye contact not breaking even when Morena pushed the empty glass off table’s edge with her knuckles, letting it shatter and spray shard across the table’s underside. “If you haven’t already guessed, I’m rather proactive in my methods.”

“You’re violent,” Kuroro shot back.

“Indeed.”

“Why?”

“Because I can,” Tserriednich clapped his hands and straightened out. “Because it's _easy._ ”

Kuroro’s lungs may have been bursting at the seams, but his gut was stretching to accommodate his discomfort.

_We are not the same._

Kuroro repeated, hollow. “What do you want?”

“What do I want, what do I want,” Tserriednich paused in faux-thought, a charismatic son of a bitch Kuroro wanted to put in the ground. He twisted his lips and popped a finger. “I want the _Gene’i Ryodan_ ’s very best, of course. Intelligent company, a fight, and perhaps a teacher. My Theta is a simple thing, you see.”

“You want me to teach you _nen_ , _”_ Kuroro scoffed. Tserriednich must have known by now that Kurapika had a vendetta against him. It was no secret, and if it was, it wasn’t kept well. _If you think I’m his lover—why me?_ More pressing, why would Tserriednich ever assume he’d accept. Kuroro raised a brow and kept it pinned. “You want me to show you the ropes.”

Hardly the ropes anymore.

“Can’t blame me for being an opportunist,” Tserriednich mused. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“I would apologize, but I’m not versed in doing so,” Kuroro breathed out his first chuckle of the night, all blood-breath and stained canines. Sweet as biting into fucking honeycomb. “I have no intention of sharing such information. I’m not going to shoot myself in the foot by telling you the ins and outs of my own abilities.”

“Are you saying we’re not on neutral terms?” Tserriednich was playing a dangerous game. “I wasn’t aware there was bad blood between us.”

“No, but thieves are prone to a little caution, you’ll have to forgive me,” Kuroro leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms. “I will not tell you what I can do.”

“You don’t need to,” Morena sweetened her voice with a pause, waited until Kuroro turned to her. She reached, touching two fingers to the cross on his forehead, left framed by hair and lowering brows. The touch was nostalgic, odd and welcome. She tilted her body over the table, close enough for the scent of rosewater and incense and hookah to wind into his locked chest, close enough for her iron crown of thorns to make inferior his tattoo.

A single finger dragged its way down the slope of his nose, into the dip of his upper lip and along its bowed curve. A squared nail found the cut of his jaw, ran its length and tilted Kuroro higher—

He flew back, glare cutthroat.

Morena didn’t so much as flinch, eased back into her seat with a wistful sigh and smile. “I suppose the old fashioned way will have to do.”

“You’re a thief,” Tserriednich looked amused, “your _nen_ must follow suit somehow. A way to transport items, a way to steal them. But if I’m not wrong, your aura is similar to my own. Which makes you—”

“A _Specialist_ ,” Kuroro iced, still staring at Morena without an ounce of mercy. “And I urge to consider the risk of prying into my personal business.”

“With all due respect, Kuroro Lucifer,” Halkenburg thought to interrupt where Kuroro wanted him to stay out. “You look like a dead man on the run, I don’t think you can posit your intimidation anymore.”

Kuroro’s neck stretched, bringing his face forward. “I beg your pardon?”

“He’s not wrong… not really,” Morena murmured, like butterscotch and a burn mark. “You’ve exhausted yourself chasing corners, and you look more mess than man. I can’t find it in me to fear you… not with eyes like those.”

Eyes, eyes, eyes—

“Tell you what, as a comfort and evidence of my good faith,” Tserriednich’s sigh was a whole performance, crafted for an audience. “My _nen_ is yours to know.”

 _Mine to_ take.

Instinct chased sense straight out of Kuroro’s pulse, sunk his tongue to keep his excitement silent. There was no time like the present, and no opportunity quite as obvious. Body a mecca of adrenaline and nameless medication, Kuroro watched Tserriednich for a lie. Those lips stayed pursed, stayed solemn, blink patient. _I’m going to kill you._ Kuroro’s mind flew in quiet binary, tongue pushing back residue of blood and wine. _You’re mine._

If played right, this was a foothold that would do more than earn Kurapika’s love; it would earn his _worship._

Authority between his teeth, Kuroro spoke. “That would be a start. It’s for me to decide whether your will’s good enough.”

Tserriednich was placid in his amusement, head inclined. Without fail, suspicion ruptured Kuroro’s focus, _this isn’t a victory for you and it shouldn’t feel like a loss for me, not with information of this sort._ But it did, by the satisfaction bending Tserriednich’s mouth. Kuroro banked the tension, dialed back the paranoia and the weight of Morena’s stare. Tserriednich leaned back, kissed his teeth in thought. “I’ve decided on a name for it, however tentative. _Precognition.”_

Kuroro curved a tongue up against his gums, kept his breath there. “Your _nen_ deals with future insight.”

“It is future insight, actually,” Tserriednich ran a finger along the rim of stacked chips, several orbits. “I see about ten seconds into the future. No time lapses between activation and deactivation, insofar that my eyes remain closed. An ephemeral ten, if you will.”

Kuroro’s thief blood swelled in his wrists, beat and throbbed; _I want it._ “How devastating.”

Tserriednich hummed his agreement, _“Parallel Future_ is perhaps a more fitting umbrella term.”

“That suggests you’re able to experience the present while seeing the future.”

“Yes,” Tserriednich’s eyes flicked up and his finger stopped making rounds. “It does.”

 _You're a menace._ Kuroro had seen his fair share of catastrophic _nen,_ on fronts of offense and defense both. If Tserriednich was being honest— _this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard._ Kurapika stood no chance.

Kuroro cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “What dangerous _hatsu.”_

“Oh, it’s not _hatsu,”_ Tserriednich’s amusement widened in breadth. “It's, ah, what did you call it, Theta?”

Theta met eyes with Kuroro and was reminiscent of the warning look she’d given him, way back when, over the back of a _nen_ beast.

 _“Zetsu._ ”

Kuroro was spectral.

_You have to be kidding me._

_Zetsu._ Adrenaline pulsing, Kuroro tried not to let his awe surface. Tserriednich hadn’t been a patron of _nen_ for longer than a handful of months. Dread came in waves; any power relating to divination deserved reverence, caution. But _this—_ this was leviathanic. Kuroro thoughts stormed, trying to gauge Tserriednich's potential if this was him wetting his toes. With a kafkaesque _nen_ beast as his defense, and future-telling as a supplementary aid—

 _What_ is _this man?_

Without a twitch in his expression, Kuroro blinked once. “Impressive.”

“Should I color you interested, too?” Tserriednich ran a finger down the short length of the chip pile. “I’m sure we could reach a stellar arrangement.” 

“Very well,” Kuroro lied, mind whirring and eyes flashing to Tserriednich’s ringed hands. He needed to find a way to get the prince's palm on _Bandit’s Secret,_ needed to see _Parallel Future_ in action. Foot in the door strategies worked best in the short term, and with his thoughts running too quick to catch, Kuroro settled on a fair in-between. _He can’t stop me from taking his_ nen _if he’s already told me about it, it doesn’t matter if he knows now. As long as I don’t tell him my conditions._

Settled, Kuroro made to speak.

“No need for that, I know exactly what you can do,” Tserriednich interrupted with a laugh that hollowed Kuroro’s gut. He flicked the stack over, let it scatter. “As pretty as you may be, _danchou,_ you’re lacking requisite cynicism and a nose for unsavory offers. Too much of a bait-taker, you’d make a terrible gambler.”

Kuroro smiled, mean and aloof. _He’s bluffing._ “You like talking. Unfortunate that none of it is worth listening to.”

“Oh?” Tserriednich’s voice domesticated a higher pitch, made itself thin with disappointment. “So your _nen_ isn’t parasitic? Could’ve sworn those eyes gave away an intent to take what wasn’t yours.”

Like clockwork, Kuroro’s smile gave in to gravity and malice, faded into open antipathy.

Son of a _bitch._

“There it is,” Morena purred, laughed, reveled in the dense aura Kuroro was no longer trying to discipline. He was enough of a liar to know when a lie would take and when it wouldn’t, and by the sweet satisfaction that licked up Tserriednich’s expression, no amount of charm would evict his conviction. _Is he stupid or something?_ Kuroro wanted to stab something clean through Tserriednich’s palm, nail him to the table he was so keen on drumming fingers against.

The offer was a smoke-out.

And it worked.

Kuroro’s thrill shone through a weak spot, a leaking dam of miscalculation. Tserriednich’s move was a risk meant to gauge Kuroro’s reaction, capitalize on receiving one. _But if you had the slightest suspicion I could rip your_ nen _clean off you, why, by the Muses, would you tell me anyway?_

Something wasn’t adding up.

“What a stupid move to make,” Kuroro dropped courtesy.

“Not at all,” Tserriednich reached to place a hand over his sisters, squeezed to where it would hurt. “My wretch of a sister owed you for the _Cha-R,_ and I consider it a show of goodwill. I want your trust, Kuroro Lucifer, as you have mine. Even if your lover is more predisposed to stupid means to getting what he’s after.”

Kuroro’s eyes sharpened.

_What the fuck did you do, Kurapika?_

Reaching over to grab Halkenburg’s drink—an ivory rum that tasted closer to cough medicine than sugar cane—Kuroro downed it with class, mastery. Without hiss, he cut a look across at the siblings. “I urge you to watch what you say. I’m far more forgiving than he is.” _Far less dangerous at this point, too._

“Isn’t everyone?” Tserriednich commented, flippant. “Not a hard mark to hit, if you ask m—”

He paused, angling silence over Kuroro’s shoulder.

Tserriednich’s focus shattered. Brows taking to his hairline, the prince found his brother’s eyes with an urgency he’d never shown before; Halkenburg mirrored it, a caution that came stiff and steady, like a gun waiting to smoke. Kuroro’s hand tightened around the rum, frowned when Tserriednich’s head turned to face him before his eyes did. There was no purr of _nen,_ nothing to signal the marbling of Tserriednich’s irises; Kuroro knew better than to look back. He wouldn’t feed into something he himself didn’t feel; he wouldn’t play Tserriednich’s fucking Orpheus.

Over Kuroro’s shoulder, an arm came down and placed a detailed silver salver right in front of him.

A set of Spades cards, palm-sized obituaries, prayed up at Kuroro. 

_One._

_Two._

_Five._

Nobunaga. Feitan. Phinks.

Tserriednich let out a low whistle, long and drawn. “Spider Solitaire.”

Kuroro’s form stormed into movement.

Flooded with infinite levels of indignation, he sprung to his feet, let pain sear over medication, and snatched the retreating arm. Kuroro’s breathing eclipsed all else in his hearing, Halkenburg’s _calm downs_ and Morena’s shifting. Wringing the forearm, Kuroro forced the waiter to turn to him, blond hair flying by virtue of its force, body loosened at the joints. Weightless, is what it was. Weightless and too familiar to a moment against a suite’s door. Movement settled with momentum, a dust which cleared Kuroro of everything good and bad and in-between.

Looking back at him was Kurapika.

A waiter’s tux, a sweet, peach-bowed mouth, the most imperfect emptiness.

_Wrong eyes._

The wrong shade of _fucking_ brown. Smokey taupe was nowhere to be found, instead lidded, and dark, and dirt-brown-unrecognizable. It paled the gold in his skin, made deeper the sockets and the heavy brows. No, the landscape Kuroro had studied and sealed came together _wrong._ His free hand grabbed blond hair, forced their foreheads together, and found exactly what he knew he would.

_You don’t know him like I do._

Behind a non-pierced ear, sat a flathead needle.

_And your copy doesn’t match._

Kuroro slid his hand from nape to collar.

A high, _swinging_ arch brought the body down by the neck, cleared the table of chips and set a powerful break flying down its center. Tserriednich was the only one to move, rising at the heel, an electric current in his eyes. Kuroro didn’t see it, didn’t see _anything_ save blond hair splayed on green, hands resting without protest on the iron in his wrist. Fury knew no master, pushing numbness out of his fingers and into the force he used to silence the _thing’s_ breathing. Kurapika’s lashes fluttered copper, mouth not fighting for the breath Kuroro deprived it of.

Violet folded into the thing’s cheeks, saturated death before it came. Kuroro didn’t yield, resting his bodyweight and then some on a creaking collar, listening to fissures form under the heel of his palm. Illumi was going to be gutted, right after Kuroro made an myth of Hisoka. His thumb dug into the underside of its jaw, sunk tendon and skin until the only thing remaining was a fading pulse; a staccato, calm and unaffected by a vice-grip death sentence.

_How dare you._

_I’ll hold you down like this Hisoka,_ Kuroro smoked sanity. _I’ll hold you down and break your neck and make death become you._

 _I will make death_ become _you for ever bringing the thought of him into this._

Kuroro bore himself closer, face inches from its vacancy _—Kurapika’s_ vacancy, hips slotted so tight against the body that they shared breath: no breath on either end. He weighed his shoulder heavier, the weight of months, and weeks, and forty-eight hours of religious _fury._ That expression was never one Kurapika would wear, unsuited to his features, an insult to his history, his revenge. Kuroro had never done anything in his life with more industry than the sheer physical force he rested on his own wrist. He wouldn’t use _nen._ He would kill this thing and leave it at the gates of paradise for Illumi to lick up, eat up, _choke on_.

Kuroro listened to death when it settled. Listened to a snap. Listened to the exhale of a nostril.

Sag of a body.

Wrath rippling down his arm, he lifted the body by the throat and brought it down with one last, deafening _crack._

Room bathed in ringing silence, Kuroro panted half-breaths down onto Kurapika’s still features.

His hand came loose, as did the line of that neck. Kuroro didn’t fall back, brushing the hair out of the way to get a hold of the needle he knew sat hidden behind its right ear— _missing an earring, missing an earr—_ and pulled. Kuroro’s smile sat satisfied, spaded, when the features of the thing collapsed and reformed, a circus mirror of Kurapika’s mythic fucking beauty.

Then it settled.

And faster than a man on the gallows, his gut fell.

Under his hand and breath and the force of his own killing, sat a pair of brown eyes he should’ve known better than pain, better than falling. Better than life itself. Than Kurapika’s.

_Shizuku._

Shizuku by her brown eyes, by her sloping, grave-cradling cheeks. 

Just Shizuku. 

Hair thinned black. 

Body, hourglassed. 

Body, cold. 

Getting colder.

Kuroro didn’t have time to look, to pull apart the sight like he had with everything else. His eyes heavied with overcast, posture sunken and brittle; the whip of reality had landed one too many times on raw flesh. Mocked the shoulders of Atlas, and those scars that came with carrying the weight of a world he didn’t belong to, licking wounds infected. Shizuku didn’t stare up at him. Her lashes casting the image of death, the _pieta_ in glorious reform. There was no need to look further, every inch of her a new reason to surrender. A new reason to baptize himself in fire, in molotov-cocktailed self-loathing. 

_‘I still have the smell of blood on my hand,’_ Kuroro’s spirit thinned, soured, disappeared. _‘All the perfumes of Arabia couldn’t make my little hand smell better.’_

The broken mind of a Lady Macbeth.

Tserriednich moved first. Slipped his palm, serpentine, slow, under her hair. Pulled the cards from the cradle of a caved in slaver. Careful, deliberate movements with eyes that never left the soulless cut of Kuroro’s brow. Three, total. Three, one by one, until they were free and slotted between ringed fingers. 

Tserriednich set the cards face-down, one after the other, snapping the corners. On their back were paintings, pretty things Kuroro’s dissociating mind had no trouble identifying as tarot. The periphery of his mind. The part which wasn’t numbed with grief and disillusionment and the desire to swallow burning coal.

“My, looks like you’ve got yourself a time and place,” Tserriednich’s voice found him. Kuroro didn’t see him. “A date, and perhaps a proposition. From me—a nonpareil offer, for a brother in arms.”

Kuroro’s body swayed, eyed nothing, didn’t breathe and didn’t fight Morena when she slid up behind him. A palm brushed its way up from his abdomen, coming to peace over his heart. Her other arm hooked around his throat, veered him closer by the cheek. Lips rolling against his jaw, she murmured a _listen now,_ a sweet surrender of misery and mastery and morbid miscalculation. _Judas._

Tserrednich was a detail in a background of white noise.

“Take my _nen_ for now—take it and let us meet somewhere grander, like we were _destined_ to.”

_Grander._

_Larger than life._

_With death like theater._

Morena’s hand brought Kuroro’s cheek into her words, wet her mouth with the only tear that left his vacancy.

_“Take the offer, brightest morning-star.”_

With a heavy head, and a nod that fell but didn’t lift, he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **mount of mercury** : _symbolizes the person’s wisdom and ability to think; when low, describes a person who has a tendency towards negativity and lacking willpower; they often avoid putting in effort into achieving their goals._
> 
>   
> _static noise_
> 
> i'm so sorry


End file.
